PR 2719 
|.N3 Z7 
Copy 1 

I UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 



THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF 
THOMAS NABBES 



BY 

CHARLOTTE MOORE 



A THESIS 

PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN 
■ PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR 
THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 



Part I 



George Banta Publishing Co. 

Menasha, Wisconsin 
1918 



UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 



THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF 
THOMAS NABBES 



BY 

CHARLOTTE MOORE 
it 



A THESIS 

PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN 

PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR 

THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 



Part I 



2^1ic QIallpginte |Jrrs» 

Giorge Banta Publishing Company 

Menasha, Wisconsin 

1918 



^fh 



Gift 
University 
SEP 23 Ultf 



CONTENTS 

Page 

Preface v 

I. Biographical Data 1 

II. Nabbes and his Critics 7 

III. A Review of: 

1. The Comedies 12 

2. The Masques 17 

3. The Tragedy of The Unfortunate Mother 22 

IV. The Tragedy, Hannibal and Scipio 24 

V. The Question concerning "A Former Play" 32 

VI. The Original Sources and Influences 40 

VII. Nabbes' Hannibal and Scipio compared with other English and 

Foreign Plays on the Subject of the Second Punic War.... 45 

Transcript of the Bodleian Fragment 53 

Bibliography 59 



PREFACE 

The Collected Poems and Plays of Thomas N abbes, edited by A. H. 
Bullen, and published in 1887, is the first and only attempt to bring the 
work of this dramatist into a form easily accessible to the student of the 
old drama. The introduction to this edition supplemented by Sir 
Sidney Lee's sketch in The Dictionary of National Biography, has 
furnished the point of departure for the biographical comment which 
opens the present study of Nabbes as a dramatist and the author of the 
tragedy, Hannibal and Scipio. As far as practicable, the sources used 
by the biographers named, and by others of the scant commentators upon 
Nabbes, have been carefully reexamined. In the review of the indivi- 
dual plays, Bullen's edition has been used for the comedies, the masques 
and the tragedy of The Unfortunate Mother. For the more detailed 
study of the tragedy, Hannibal and Scipio, the Quarto text, 1637, has 
been used. 1 

The method is indicated in general, at each stage of the investigation, 
which has aimed to distinguish as clearly as possible between the modi- 
cum of the really authoritative and the purely inferential concerning 
Nabbes and his work. The aim has been not so much to draw conclu- 
sions as to find probable grounds for possible conclusions. 

Grateful acknowledgement is due to the professors of the depart- 
ment of English in the University of Pennsylvania, to whose lectures 
there is traceable either direct or indirect influence, in this study. Spe- 
cial acknowledgement is made to Professor F. E. Schelling under whose 
direction the study was undertaken and to whose criticism it was sub- 
mitted. Among those of other departments acknowledgement is due 
to Professor Walton B. McDaniel of the department of Latin. 

Among librarians, those of the circulating department of the Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania, those of Columbia University and the librarian 
of the University of Chicago, are remembered for special courtesies. 
The librarian of the Bodleian, Oxford, has generously granted a trans- 
cript of the manuscript fragment used in the study of Hannibal and 
Scipio, and reprinted at the close. The Rector of Exeter College kindly 
sent copies of the record of the matriculation of Nabbes in that College. 

C. M. 

May 21, 1915. 

1 Hunter's Ms. Chorus Vatican in Brit. Mus. Addit. Ms. 24487, ff. 334. 



I 

Biographical Data 

So far as known, the name, Thomas Nabbes, is found in but one ori- 
ginal record, that of the Register of Commoners at Exeter College, Oxford, 
where he was matriculated on the third of May 1601 at the age of sixteen. 1 
The same entry is given by The Oxford Historical Society, but the name 
is spelled doubtfully as Nabbes (Nabbs). 2 From the meagreness of 
record it may be inferred that the Oxford residence of Nabbes was 
briefer than might be assumed from the wide and accurate first-hand 
knowledge of the classics and of the modern languages displayed in his 
literary work. 3 How far this attainment and its influence upon his 
work are due to academic training, is not clear, though much of it was 
doubtless the result of his mental bent stimulated by the prevailing 
literary taste of his time. 

The Worcestershire birth of Nabbes indicated by his matriculation, 
is possibly supported by several of his minor poems. An Encomium 
on the London Steeple at Worcester carries with it a sense of intimacy 
with the cathedral and its environment. The wish expressed at the 
close of the poem, to find here a final resting place, is suggestive, though 
not proof, of strong attachment to the cathedral and village. 

Oh might I begge that when my soule goes forth 
Of this foule earth to climb above thy head 
And that the rest be reckoned with the dead. 4 

Two other poems have been noted by the two brief biographers of 
Nabbes, as indicative of Worcestershire residence. 5 Bullen finds evidence 
in these of a more than ordinary conviviality of temperament for Nabbes. 
Of these poems, that Upon Excellent Strong Beere which he drank at the 
Towne of Wich in Worcestershire where Salt is made might pass as a 

1 "Nabbes, Thomas; plebs. of Worcs. (Worcestershire). Matriculated 3rd May, 
1621, Age 16," Register of Commoners, Exeter College, Oxford. 

2 The Oxford Hist. Soc. V. II, pt. 11, p. 387. 

3 See also Nabbes' continuation of Knowlle's History of the Turks where frequent 
quotation is made from a wide range of the classics, and from modern foreign literature. 

4 For minor poems in this connection, see Bullen, V. I, pp. 238, 242, 246. 

5 See introduction to Bullen's Collected Works of Thomas Nabbes, 2 Vols. (Odl 
Eng. Plays) London 1887. Sidney's Lee's Thomas Nabbes in The Dictionary of 
National Biography. The sketch in the Encyclopedia Britanica follows Bullen and 
Lee. 



2 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 

tourist's wine song for which he had popular examples among poets 
of a sobriety consistent even with Puritan ideals of the day. The 
second poem, Upon losing of his way in a Forrest parting from his company 
to go home towards the evening, is possibly more definite for the convivial 
temperament inferred by Bullen. The author relates that the darkness 
added to the uncertainty of forest paths and his equally uncertain 
steps, obliged him to ask hospitality for the night, at the house of a 
smith, to whom he commends himself as a "Servant of my Lords." 
This inference from his poems of convivial tendencies might find some 
support from the poet's verses, Upon Mr. Henry Welby whose total 
abstinence extending to the regimen of a strict vegetarian, gained for 
him the eccentric title, The Phoenix of these late times. The praise which 
Nabbes confers upon the gentleman as 

A scholler of all Sorts in some degree, 
Philosopher, Historian and Divine; 
All but a poet, for he drank no wine. 

might argue the author's confidence in a source of inspiration, at that 
time rarely neglected by either philosopher or divine. It is the local 
basis of these poems however, which gives Bullen's conclusion that 
"Nabbes liked good liquor," 6 a precedence over an opposite inference 
of strict temperance for Nabbes, to be gathered from his constant em- 
phasis upon self-control in the entire conduct of life, exhibited in his 
plays, and especially in his Hannibal and Scipio. It is perhaps safe 
to conclude that the episode of the poem mentioned, in which Nabbes 
says — "A pleasant juyce (perry) was brought, made us beguile Time 
with more words than matter," probably was for himself at least, an 
isolated event, and all the more proved so by its celebration in the 
author's verse. 7 As a staple of Western Worcestershire, perry would 
reasonably be celebrated in a poem connected with that locality, just 
as the beer of Wich was celebrated in the poem on that place, and as 
the Worcester Cathedral was the theme of the poem connected with 
the town of Worcester. • 

It is equally as hazardous to conclude definitely individual traits 
for Nabbes, from the characters of his plays. That he was constant 
to lofty dramatic ideals, and that he was a man of excellent motives, 
no reader of his plays can doubt. Whether his personal characteristics 
were those of Sam, his "deserving gentleman of the Inns of Court," 

6 Bullen, V. I, p. 271. 

7 Upon Losing of his way in a Forrest, etc. Bullen, V. I p. 242. 



THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 3 

or whether Changelove of the same play, portrays more nearly its 
author's habitual moods, there can at least be no doubt that his Sam, 
and his Scipio Africanus express his approved principles of conduct, 
and that in ideal at least, he never declined below the better moments 
of his Changelove who holds that, 

Society is the use 

Of man's best ornaments, speech and discourse 
Are reason's messengers, that carry errands 
From one soule to another. I confesse 
I love good company. 8 

Except the date of his matriculation at Oxford, all dates and events 
associated with Nabbes by his brief biographical sketches, are wholly 
conjectural from his works. Even his short poems described above 
seem to be merely reminiscent of Worcestershire. As shown by its 
connection, An Encomium on the leaden Steeple was written after the 
benefactor of the cathedral, Dr. William Juxon, had been made Bishop 
of London, and at least six years after the date 1630, assigned by bio- 
graphers as the beginning of Nabbes' London life." 9 The date 1630 
is itself wholly conjectural from the supposition that Covent Garden, 
which was acted in 1632, was the author's first play. 10 

From 1632-41, the poet's name appears not infrequently among 
those of playwrights and other poets, sometimes in connection with 
commendatory verses prefixed to certain editions of poets of the day, 
as well as in other memorial tribute. The circumstances as well as 
the date of Nabbes' death are unknown. The brief note in Chamber's 
Encyclopedia of English Literature gives 1645 as approximately the 
date of his death, but there is evidently no reliable source for this date. 11 
As an author Nabbes disappears in 1641. Whether like Shirley, he 
found retreat amid rural scenes, or whether as Bullen conjectures, he 
may have fallen in battle for his King, it is impossible to say. 12 The 
latter conjecture is pleasing in so far as it suggests such martial adventure 
as that in which his "true friend" and fellow playwright, Shackerley 
Marmion, lost his life. A more prosaic but more probable conjecture 

8 Tottenham Court, Act V, 3, p. 172. Bullen, V. I. 

9 See the date of the poem (1637) affixed to the title page, by the author, (Bullen 
V. II, p. 242). 

10 For the date 1630 see Lee, Dictionary National Biography, XI, Thomas Nabbes. 

11 Allibone's Critical Dictionary, Eng. Lit. VII, Philadelphia, 1880, also gives 
date 1645. 

12 Bullin's Introd. p. xii, V. I. 



4 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 

would accept 1641 as approximately the date of Nabbes' death. If 
we may trust tradition, he died in London, and was buried in the Temple 
Church, in the near neighborhood of which he must have had residence. 
Bullen cites Baker's Companion to the Play House, 1764, as giving Coex- 
ter's opinion that, "This is the Thomas Nabbes who lies buried in the 
Temple Church, under the organ, on the inner side." 13 As to the absence 
of his name in the burial register of the church, Bullen quotes Canon 
Angier's opinion that the omission is referable to the poet's humble 
station, an explanation evidently inadequate. Baker's quoted reference 
to the burial place of a Thomas Nabbes in the Temple Church however 
accords with an inference regarding the London residence of Nabbes, to 
be derived from certain characters of his Tottenham Court, and especially 
from his dedication of The Bride. 

The latter comedy acted in 1638 is addressed by the author, "to 
the Generality of His noble friends, Gentlemen of the several Honorable 
Houses of the Inns of Court. " A hint of employment on the part of the 
Inns is given at the close of the dedication. After commending The 
Bride to their acceptance and protection, he adds; "And the honor 
that you doe me thereby will add to those many engagements that 
bind me always to declare myself your most thankful servant, Thomas 
Nabbes." Tottenham Court acted in 1633, has among its principal 
characters, two gentlemen of the Inns of Court. The inference is reason- 
able that Nabbes had residence in the Inns of Court. Whether like 
Beaumont and Wycherley and Tom Moore, he was a student at law, 
or like Johnson, Goldsmith, Cowper, Lamb and others, he was a lodger 
merely, or whether he held a clerk's or a secretary's position, it is not 
clear. The tone of the dedication as well as the apparent respect in 
which Nabbes was held by contemporary writers, would at least favor 
the view that he possessed the qualities essential to a cultured man of 
that day. His favorite studies, Greek and Latin literature besides 
general literature and history, were those required for entrance as a law 
student at the Inns of Court. 14 Whether he resided at the Inner Temple, 
the proverbial residence of the less wealthy, would depend upon whether 
Nabbes' depreciation of his means may be considered sincere or whether 
it was merely the seventeenth century author's conventional flaunt at 
his fortune. The character of Nabbes' dramatic work classes it with 

13 Baker's Companion to the Play House, V. II, Thomas Nabbes. Coexter's 
Manuscript notes were used by Cibber in his Lives of the Poets. 

"Walter Thornbury's "Old and New London," V. I; 13-16, pp. 173-179. Lon- 
don (no date). 



THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 5 

that of members of the Inns of Court. His critics are agreed upon his 
excellence as a writer of masques. It is quite possible from his phrase 
"those many engagements," that he composed entertainments for the 
Inns, upon occasions not on record. 

The brief poems of Nabbes complimenting the work of his fellow 
playwrights and poets, are of the kind incident to the most informal 
intercourse of their gild. 15 These define in general the literary envi- 
ronment of Nabbes. Among those whom he addresses as friends are: 
Schackerly Morman and Sir John Suckling, both gentlemen of depleted 
fortunes; Robert Chamberlain, the author of Nocturnal Lucubrations, 
1638; John Tatham, the dramatist and the composer of the Lord Mayor's 
pageants; Thomas Jordan, Tatham's successor as city poet, and the 
author of Poetical Varieties, 1640; also Thomas Beedome of the Poems 
Divine and Human, 1641. Among complimentary verses addressed to 
Nabbes are those of Richard Brome, "To his deare friend, the author 
upon his Microcosmus. 16 Brome had risen from the rank of servant to 
Ben Jonson, to the place of leading playwright in the reign of Charles 
the first. Fortune's wheel almost measured its round in these friends 
of Nabbes, as they met upon the common ground of poets with an occa- 
sional play, and of dramatists with occasional poems. Nabbes appar- 
ently had as strong an affinity with the poets of the group as with the 
playwrights, and so fraternized with both. 

The association of Nabbes with those of the older dramatists who 
then survived, is even more purely a matter of inference from his works; 
but external circumstances also favor the possibility of a personal ac- 
quaintance with Ben Jonson who was still the center of an admiring circle 
of poets and playwrights recognized by him as his "sons" in the art. 
The Apollo Room, which had superseded the Mermaid of earlier days, 
was at the Devil's Tavern, not far from the Temple Church. Of the 
Mermaid group, there remained Chapman, Dekker, Marston, Webster, 
Massinger Ford and Shirley, and of these, the two latter with Webster 
were yet strong in their best work. Nabbes' London associates in gen- 
eral indicate his literary status among his fellow writers. One of his 
Job's comforters after The Unfortunate Mother had been refused by the 
actors, declares that tragedy to have rivalled Davenant's popular Albo- 
vine. He assures Nabbes that The Unfortunate Mother was well-plotted 
and well-written, he bids him remember its illustrious companion in 

15 See close of Vol. I, Bullen. 

16 Prefixed to Microcosmus, V. II (Bullen) p. 162. 



6 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 

failure, Jonson's The New Inn. 17 Another assures him that the play 
would have proved good, had it only been acted. 18 Another compliments 
his "muse that doth so sweetly sing." 19 There is a sort of naivete in 
the author's act of dedicating this rejected child of his muse to a stranger, 
the "Right worshipfull Richard Braithwaite, Esquire. 20 The solace of 
friends however biassed, might have sufficed, had the author's disap- 
pointment arisen merely from wounded vanity; but this appeal to a 
critic of accredited taste upon whose favor friendship could have no 
claim, is apparently not in the spirit of the ordinary seeker of patronage. 
Nabbes usually dedicated his plays to his friends: Covent Garden to 
" his admired friend, The Rightworthy of His Honours, Sir John Suckling, 
Knight;" Tottenham Court, to "The Worshipfull William Mills, Esquire 
... as a publick declaration of the gratitude I owe you. " The Spring's 
Glory is dedicated to "Master William Balle, the young son of his friend, 
Peter Balle. The Bride, as noted above, was dedicated "To the Gener- 
ality of His noble friends ... of the Inns of Court." On the whole 
Nabbes' dedications appear to have been written hardly with a view to 
advancement as a playwright ; they have rather the tone of an author who 
made playwriting an avocation of pride and delight. The only apparent 
exception to this is the author's complaint in his address to the ghosts 
of Hannibal and Scipio, of some lack of pay for the writing of that play. 21 
The brief list of Nabbes' plays, the single performance of those which 
were acted, and the two excellent masques that were not acted, the light, 
thoughtless compliments of his friends who generally reiterate the 
author's own aims and ideals, all belong to the range of an amateur. 
Microcosmus is the only play of Nabbes, which bears upon its title page 
such evidence of public approval as "Presented with general liking." 
Prefixed to this as published in 1637, are verses by Richard Brome and 
an unidentified Will CuFaude. 22 Brome compliments the author upon 
his philosophy, learning and wit that make the play a means of "profit 
and delight." The second writer compliments the "poetic rage" that 
would "make a schoole of virtue of a common stage." Both writers 

17 See Complimentary Verses signed C. G., p. 89, with Bullen's note on Carew- 
Hazlitt's opinion that Charles Gerber wrote these lines. 

18 Signed E. B. which Bullen thinks the initials for Edward Beedome, poet and 
patron of poets, p. 89, V. II. 

19 Signed R. W. for which no name has been found. See p. 89, V. II, Bullen. 

20 See p. 85, V. II, Bullen. 

21 The Ghosts of Hannibal and Scipio to the author B. V. II. 

22 See Bullen V. I, pp. 162-3. Of "Will CuFaude" nothing has been found. 
Horace, Ars Poetica, I. 333 "Aut prodesse volunt aut delectare Poetae." 



THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 7 

apparently echo the Horatian motto borne by the title page of Micro- 
cosmus, "Debent et prodesse et delectare Poetae, " a sentence briefly 
summarizing the dramatic creed of Nabbes. 

In his prologues, Nabbes often contrasts himself with his latter day 
playwrights, in that his plays gave a serious turn to light subjects treated 
upon the contemporary stage. 23 As usual with conscientious writers 
his excellent aims were acknowledged; but his work was not overrated 
by a public intent upon amusement rather than upon ethical values. 

It is apparent that Nabbes was not a timeserver in his dramatic 
work. His clearly defined ideals held hard by the Jonsonian precept that 
the office of the dramatist is to interpret the life of his age in such a way 
as to set forth the eternal verities; but the age that had been even half- 
way inclined thus to view the drama, had passed away. Nabbes like 
his Master Jonson, had to beat his poetic wings against the unyielding 
bars of public opinion. In endeavoring to keep the drama to its nobler 
office, each had to take for his solace, that in ideal at least, he was above 
the grovelling audiences and those playwrights who were content to 
please them. 

II 

Nabbes and his Critics 

Among dramatic compilers and critics the meagre and somewhat 
conflicting comment upon the work of Nabbes, has mainly repeated the 
verdict of his own day, in its mingled recognition and neglect. Those 
nearest his own time and those farthest from it, regard him the more 
favorably. Lee quotes Samuel Shepherd's The Times Displayed pub- 
lished in 1646, five years after the date of Nabbes' last published poem, 
as ranking him with Beaumont and Fletcher, Shirley and Davenant, 
and as especially commending his Hannibal and Scipio. u Bullen finds 
that the English Treasury of Wit and Language, edited by John Cot- 
grove in 1655, includes among that miscellany "many wise and well- 
expressed extracts from Nabbes. Near the close of his century in 1691, 
Nabbes is ranked by Langbaine as a third-rate poet, though as one 

23 See Prologues to Covcnt Garden, Tottenham Court, Hannibal and Scipio, V. I, 
Bullen. Prologue to The Bride, The Unfortunate Mother, V. II, Bullen, The Spring's 
Glory, p. 219, V. II, p. 256, "A Presentation, etc." 

24 An Elegie on his Ingenious friend, the deserving Author, Master Thomas Beedome. 
Prefixed to Thomas Beedome's Poems Divine and Human, 1641. Lee refers to the 
Sixth Sestiad, Assyzes of Apollo. 



8 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 

pretty much respected by the poets of his time. 25 Langbaine commends 
Nabbes in that "what he published was his own and not borrowed from 
others"; but even in this, Langbaine has taken Nabbes at his own word, 
basing the statement upon the prologue to Covent Garden where the 
author, 

Justifies that 'tis no borrowed straine 

From the invention of another's braine 

Nor did he steale the Fancie : 26 

By the middle of the eighteenth century, Nabbes had fallen in the scale 
of the critics. The author of Cibber's Lives of the Poets, published in 
1753, gives Nabbes fifth rank. 27 Sir Walter Scott who expressed him- 
self delighted with Shackerley Marmion's The Antiquary, takes no notice 
of the much less farcical and more nearly romantic characterization of 
an antiquary in Nabbes' comedy, The Bride. Genest has the following 
perfunctory review of these plays. "Covent Garden is a poor play, 
having no plot and little incident, Tottenham Court has scenes that 
appear to advantage. Hannibal and Scipio is not a bad tragedy nor 
has it much to recommend it"; but by virtue perhaps of the romantic 
reversion, the same writer styles The Unfortunate Mother, "a very good 
play." 28 Samuel Brydges merely mentions the dramatic work of 
Nabbes, but notes more specifically that he wrote in 1637, a continua- 
tion of Knolles' History of the Turks. 29 

Later comment upon Nabbes, though still meager and conflicting 
in valuation, shows a tendency to return to the estimate of the author 
in his own day. Ward names his as "a meritorious writer of dramatic 
works of various kinds"; but Ward is chiefly interested in the Moral 
Masque, Microcosmus, w r hich he says has a certain interest in having 
been, so far as known, the first dramatic composition of the kind ever 
exhibited on a public stage. 30 Lee, whose biographical sketch of Nabbes 
is the more detailed, though in essentials following Bullen, estimates the 
author as "a passable writer of comedies, inventing his own plots, and 
lightly censuring the foibles of middle class London society. " He thinks 
his tragedies not attractive, but notes his "satisfactory command of the 

25 Langbaine's An Account of the English Dramatic Poets, 1691. 

26 Prologue to Covent Garden, p. 5, V. I, Bullen. 

27 Cibber's Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland, 5 Vols. London, 1753. 
V. II. 

28 History of the Drama and Stage in England from 1660 to 1830. V. 10, ed. 1832. 

29 Biographia Litera V. I, p. 439, Pub. 1838 as the 5th edition. 

30 History of English Dramatic Literature. V. 3, p. 194. 



THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 9 

niceties of blank verse in which all of his plays are mainly written." 31 
Bullen, the most authoritative student of Nabbes, commends him as 
"an elegant scholar and a man of gentle disposition, the author of some 
agreeable comedies, but having little genius for tragedy." Bullen's 
valuation of Nabbes has a judiciousness that is not impaired but rather 
enforced by its rhetorical close. "His place is at the feet of Shirley, 
on the lower slopes of Parnassus. He has much of Shirley's fluency and 
refinement, with not a little of his limpidness and tenuity. He was well 
nigh the last of the runners in the torch race, and the light burned very 
dimly. But it was a light not unfathered by the fire of Ida." 32 

Thus the pendulum of criticism has swung forward and back in the 
some two hundred and seventy years since The Unfortunate Mother 
went unacted into print. Even the latest valuation of Nabbes "as well 
above the average of his lesser contemporaries," leaves him still, if not 
merely an amateur, at the best a minor dramatist, with the small extant 
output of five plays and three masques. 33 His work however has for 
the student, the usual advantage of the minor writer, in its reflection 
of literary tendencies of his day with their own bearing backward into 
the Elizabethan and early Stuart drama, and forward into the drama 
of the Restoration. This is not to say that Nabbes was nothing but 
imitative of others. Such resemblances as he bears to the earlier Eliza- 
bethans and to the Jonsonian school, as well as to continental dramatists, 
are due somewhat to his treatment of the same themes and the same 
types of character, though embodied in less hackneyed phases of life. 
Though his characters and situations lack the robustness of the types 
of Roman comedy employed by Jonson, they are compensated for 
by an individuality of humor drawn from English life as Nabbes knew 
it. For the Roman sharper and his victim, Nabbes has substituted the 
roistering unscrupulous, Londoner and the artless country people of its 
neighborhood. Nabbes uses much the same range of classical allusion 
in vogue from Marlowe and Dekker to Jonson. Like Jonson he is con- 
scious in his method; like Jonson also he is subtil ely rather than broadly 
humorous, except in his coarser characterizations drawn from the tavern 
life of his day. At all times he is didactic either through contrast or 
else by direct precept; but in his comedies he never far exceeds an artis- 
tic implicitness of the moral. Like most of his contemporaries, Nabbes 

31 Diet, of Nat'l. Biog. 

82 See Introduction, V. I. Nabbes' Collected Works. 

83 Schelling's Elizabethan Drama, V. II, pp. 45, 134, 279, 280, 281. 



10 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 

is eclectic, but he selects in accordance with an aesthetic purpose wholly 
his own. 

As mentioned above, Nabbes' earlier critics accept his own statement 
that he invented the plots of his comedies, but they usually make the 
reservation that the faculty of plot-invention is in itself of no special 
value to a dramatist. Nabbes, however, mentions the originality of 
his plots partly in protest against the charge of borrowing, and partly 
to differentiate his comedies from the more popular plays of the day. 34 
Like Jonson's his plots are incidental to his selection of motive and 
especially to his portrayal of character which in certain novel situations 
where Nabbes is a master, develops of itself the dramatic action. Nabbes 
is chiefly interested in character as reflecting his ideal of life. In this 
he was consciously far above his contemporary playwrights who treat 
lightly and almost wholly farcically the same subjects in which Nabbes 
discriminates precisely between the lighter and the more serious phases. 
In his prologue to Covent Garden, Nabbes denies dependence upon other 
playwrights and describes himself as one whose 

Muse is solitary and alone 

Doth practice her low speculation. 

The early critics of Nabbes based their valuation chiefly upon his 
poetic qualities. Eighteenth century reference to his work repeats for 
the greater part, the traditional criticism of his poetic and dramatic 
qualities. Critics of a still later time and of the present day, have 
estimated his dramatic work from the viewpoint of the public stage of 
the author's own day. There remains another slightly different point 
of view from which the plays of Nabbes may be read ; that is, from their 
character of a more nearly private entertainment, which it would appear 
their author had chiefly in mind, especially if we take into consideration 
the entire content and form of his plays. In the Prologue to Hannibal 
and Scipio, there is a hint for the more private and special audience. 
This play as indicated by its crudeness of structure extending to a 
phrasing and diction characteristic of late sixteenth century plays from 
Latin sources, probably antedates Covent Garden in composition. It is 
thus the first of Nabbes' dramatic work, and as such may be trusted to 
foreshadow his aims with reference to a more nearly private audience. 
He assures for his play that, 

34 For an exception, see the prologue to Hannibal and Scipio where he suggests 
the possibility of having borrowed from "a former play." It is also probable that 
the motives and character of The Unfortunate Mother are borrowed. 



THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 11 

'Tis free 
As ever play was from scurrility 
Nor need you Ladies feare the horrid sight; 
And the more horrid noise of target fight 
By the blue coated Stage-keepers; our sphears 
Have better music to delight your eares . . . 

Earlier in the prologue, he has assured his audience that 

"Ladies shall not blush 
Nor smile under their fannes; nor he in plush, 
That from the Poet's labours in the pit 
Informes himself for the exercise of wit 
At Tavernes, gather notes. 35 

The present study accepts the above for evidence, at the beginning of 
the author's work, of a discrimination between the character of his plays 
and that of the ordinary public play, as explained later in his prologue 
to Covent Garden. This attitude of Nabbes toward his work will be 
taken as sufficient ground for certain limitations in the plays noted when 
they are compared with contemporary plays of a more public character. 
It will also, to some degree, account for the narrow range of his theme, 
for his didacticism which is considered essential to the masque and its 
near ally, the private entertainment, often more or less akin to the moral- 
ity play. With this inference from the dramatist's words concerning 
his audience and his appeal through his plays, the present study will 
proceed: first, to review generally the dramatic work of Nabbes with 
reference to the types presented, with the formal content of each plot; 
second, to discuss the question of his sources and their possible influences 
upon his work. The aim of the investigation will be to show possible 
grounds upon which judicious inference may be based. As the culminat- 
ing interest of the study is in the tragedy, Hannibal and Scipio, the 
interpretation of which is closely related and to some degree dependent 
upon that of his other plays, the more intensive study of that play will 
be reached through a study of his entire dramatic work. Beginning with 
his comedies and proceeding to his masques which may be considered as 
occupying the chief place in his work, it is hoped that some not indefinite 
clue to the interpretation as well as to the sources of the dramatist's 
Hannibal and Scipio may be reached. 

35 Prolog, Q. 11. 3-7 and 22-27. 



12 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS N ABBES 



III 

A Review of the Dramatic Work of Nabbes 

1 

Of the dramatic work of Nabbes the three comedies of manners, 
Covent Garden, Tottenham Court and The Bride, have been considered, 
next to his masques, his most successful work. 36 As usual with this type, 
the individual humor or bias is indicated in the names of the characters. 
The leading characters are genarally from the higher middle class English 
life with a background of minor characters from the lower middle class 
or the servant class. The dramatic action developed through the 
characters, is for the greater part, simple, though complicated sufficiently 
for interest and suspense, by witty ruse carried chiefly by the women 
of the action. As a whole the theme of these comedies has the effect 
of humorous comment upon certain follies incident to the different 
classes of London and of country life represented in the play. In all 
three of the comedies the action treats the conventional theme of the 
poet and playwright of the time, the different phases of love, though in 
these plays of Nabbes', with emphatic preference for the courtier or 
chivalric love. 

In the earlier comedy, Covent Garden, Artlove, " a compleat Gentleman 
with two "wilde Gallants," Jerker by name, appear as contrasting types 
of seventeenth century London society. Of these two types of character, 
Jerker may appeal to the present-day reader as more natural than 
Artlove ; but this would doubtless be because the role of the wild gallant 
admits of greater freedom of phrase and of action, also because his 
type of character has to a certain degree survived that of Artlove. The 
latter however must as a true courtier, be expected to talk by the book 
and according to a philosophical mode beyond the earthy apprehension 
of these wild gallants who dub his high phrasing, "bookish humours." 
Artlove's role in the play turns upon his admiration for Dorothy Worthy 
from whose noble character his affection takes its tone. 

where there is an union 

Of loving hearts, the joy exceeds expression, 
That love is vertuous whose desires doe never 
End in their satisfaction, but increase 

38 Covent Garden acted by the Queen's Servants, 1632-3, and published in 1638. 
Tottenham Court, acted at the private house in Salisbury Court, 1633. Pr. 1638. The 
Bride, acted at the Private House in Drury Lane, by the Queen's Servants, 1638. 



THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 13 

Towards the object; when a beateous forme 
Garnisht with all the lustre of perfection 
Invites the eye and tells the searching thought 
It holds a richer minde, with which my soule 
Would rather mixe her faculties. 37 

In interesting contrast, Dorothy Worthy regulates her affections and 
her theories about destiny according to the best seventeenth century 
tenets. 

There is a power 

Called Fate, which doth necessitate the will, 

And make desire obedient to its rule. 

All the resisting faculties of reason, 

Prevention, feare and jealousie are weake 

To disannul what in its firme decrees 

Is once determined. Yet my heart is free; 

Unbounded by the stricter limits of 

Particular affection; so I'le keep it ... 38 

These idealisations of young womanhood and of young manhood in 
Dorothy Worthy and Artlove, with their opposites in the young rowdies, 
Hugh and Jeffry Jerker, along with Mrs. Tongall, "a busie gossip," 
are dramatically offset in the minor action developed by elderly Sir 
Generous Worthy's doting jealousy of his young wife. The latter 
in witty reprisal, feigns to encourage the advances of Jeffry Jerker, 
though her sole purpose is to correct the fault of jealousy in her much- 
revered husband. However unsuccessful such a corrective might be 
in actual life, its stage effect is fortunate in directing and carrying the 
farcial and satirical comment upon social foibles and vices. 

The varied ideals of higher social life are contrasted with the more 
matter-of-fact love affairs of the servants in the Worthy household, 
and the entire comedy of the foreground shades with vivacious humor 
into a background of the London Inn and private hostel. Here the 
conventional disillusionment of the countryman newly come to the 
city, is represented in Dungworth who is intent upon the exchange of 
his ancestral acres for a knightship and the privilege of association with 
London wits, but whose brief experience with the London brand of wit 
is summed up in his concluding comment, "Thus in the abused sense, 
cheating is called wit." 39 The adventures of Dungworth are true to 
London of that day. Some of the situations are even commonplace, 

37 Bullen, V. I; 4, p. 17-18. 
38 11:4, p. 31. 

39 Act V.; 5. 



14 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 

but all the better adapted to contrast the naivete of Dungworth and 
his man, Dobson, with the over confidence of their guide, another ser- 
vant who has seen former days in London, but sufficiently in the past 
to render his directions embarassing. 

Though the language, the phrasing and the verse form of this comedy 
belong to Nabbes' early and cruder style, the expression of the play in 
general illustrates the author's ability to adapt himself to widely differing 
characters and situations. This is well illustrated in the extreme contrasts 
ranging from the posed idealism of Artlove and of Dorothy Worthy, 
through the varying shades of temperament in young worthy, Sir Gener- 
ous Worthy and his gay-hearted wife, down to the mere pleasure seeker 
and roisterer of the comedy which has in the naive and sincere Dung- 
worthy and Dobson, Nature's compensating rebound. 

Tottenham Court employs much the same types of character in Worth- 
good, "a Deserving Gentleman, in 'Changelove, ' a fantastical Gallant, 
in Sam,' a fine young Gentleman of the Inns of Court," and in James, 
"a wild young Gentleman of the Inns of Court." The action opens 
with the interupted runaway match of Worthgood and Bellamia, in the 
fields outside of London, and in the neighborhood of Tottenham Court, 
a popular pleasure resort. From this pastoral background emerges 
the leading heroine of the play, Cecely, the pretty milkmaid, beloved of 
Sam, and ultimately proved to be Cecelia, the lost sister of Worthgood. 
The comedy culminates in the successful ruse of Cecely who outwits 
the wily gallants, frequenters of Tottingham Court. By a variety of 
perilous but ultimately harmless intrigues, Cecely rescues herself and her 
protege, Bellamia, who in her elopement has been separated from 
Worthgood, her husband to be. 

Sam, the best man of Nabbes' three comedies, is the sanest embodi- 
ment of Courtly love as based upon virtue in its object. 

Mine eye ne're saw with aptnesse to desire 

That beauty could enthrall m'unbounded thoughts 

With passionate affection. Yet this piece 

Is absolute, and such as cannot choose 

But have a glorious mind. Love is a cement 

That joynes not earthly parts alone, but workes 

Upon th' eternall substance, making one 

Of two agreeing souls. 40 

In this comedy which exhibits greater maturity of thought and of 
style generally, Nabbes has improved upon his employment of country 

"Act V: 4, 176. 



THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 15 

environment in Covent Garden. In Tottenham Court the remote roar 
and tumult of London life are caught in echoes from the bridges of the 
Thames, by Worthgood and Bellamia, who else had lost their way in 
the as yet country environs of the city. 

Sure I heare. 
The Bridges cataract, and such like murmers 
As night and sleepe yield from a populous number. 41 

In this play, Nabbes exhibits also a corresponding growth in ability to 
select material and dramatic situation. His expression has become 
more natural and facile, hence more artistic. He gives to Cecilia in her 
character of milkmaid, a song which compares not unfavorably with 
the best dramatic lyrics of that time, even though it be a poetical para- 
phrase of Thomas Overbury's character of the milkmaid, beloved of all 
later writers, and especially complimented by that practical lover of 
nature, Izaak Walton, 42 

What a dainty life the milk-maid leads! 

When over the flowery meads 

She dabbles in the dewe 

And sings to her cowe; 

And feels not the paine 

Of love or disdain; 

And sleeps in the night though she toyles in the day 

And merrily passeth her time away. 

To the present-day reader of Tottenham Court it is true as of Covent 
Garden, that Nabbes appears at his best in his realistic characters and 
situations, because these have survived to an extent in actual life today , 
but his Worthgood and his high-souled Sam of the Inns of Court, like 
his Artlove and Dorothy Worthy, are no less true to the higher social 
life of that day than are his wild gallants, or the jealously amorous eld- 
erly husband and his naive countrymen. With his art of placing his 
courtly lovers and his heroic though adventurous women in an environ- 
ment of rather commonplace, actual life, he has made them beings of 
real flesh and blood. 

The Bride which was acted five years later than Tottenham Court, 
has an increasing directness of expression, a more robust characteri- 
zation, and a broader range of dramatic motive approaching the tragic 

"Act 1,: 1, 101. 

42 The complete Angler 2 Vols (Vol. I, p. 87, Chap. IV, part 1) Boston, 1892, 
Cf. Morley's Character Writings of the Seventeenth Century (Sir T. Overburg). 



16 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 

in the intrigues of Raven, the villain of the play. As comedy, the 
action and characters resemble more nearly those of the play of London 
life than of the comedy of manners. 

The action is complicated at the start by the apparent rivalry between 
Old Goodlove and his son, Theophilus, supposedly his foster-child, for 
the hand of the same young woman; but the genuine father's affection 
is discovered in his renunciation of the bride in favor of the son, with 
the explanation that his own suit had been merely a ruse to further that 
of Theophilus. The father's role combined with Raven's intrigue 
results in an elopement of the young lovers, involving romantic situa- 
tion and hazardous escapade which bring all the characters of the play 
into dramatic relief. Of the minor characters, the consequential Mrs. 
Ferret and her hen-pecked but persistent husband, a simple justice of 
the peace, assume the role of protecting deities to the runaways. Mrs. 
Ferret's well-intentioned but noisy debate with her husband, together 
with the curious entertainment furnished by Horton, an antiquary, 
with some diversion on the part of Kickshaw, a French cook, and by 
Plaster, a humorous surgeon, compose the farcical element of the play. 
Raven's finally fruitless intrigue to undo Theophilus and to make him- 
self the heir of Old Goodlove, serves as a Machiavellian foil to other 
parts of the action. 

The Courtier love of the two earlier comedies gives way in The 
Bride to a somewhat more realistic expression, a result due to the dif- 
ferent situation in the apparent rivalry between father and son. The 
young lovers however maintain a no less chivalrous ideal than do those 
of the two preceding comedies, all the more conspicuous for having been 
contrasted at times with ignoble phases of passion. This occurs when 
the robust adventures of the action bring the Bride's gentle womanhood 
into such contact with the conversation of roaring blades, that she 
almost doubts the quality of affection in the constant Theophilus Good- 
love. 

I now begin t' examine what's in you 

So taking. An indifferent handsome frame, 

The superficies neatly varnisht over. 

In it should dwell a soul rich as the building 

Doth promise to the eyes ... He that would be mine, 

Must in his mind as well as outward shine. 43 

The Bride like the two earlier comedies, has much movement in its inter- 
mingling of country scenes and London life, with fine colouring and 

« The Bride; Act II; 3, p. 28. 



THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 17 

contrast within a small compass. The museum of Horton, the anti- 
quary, is heightened in its diversion by the addition of its eccentric visi- 
tors the Ferret's and the eloping lovers who exhibit the effects of travel 
and'of exposure to the intrigues of Raven and his Roaring Blades. The 
skilled "Antiquary" himself is not the least of his many wonders on 

exhibition. 

I must confess my care 
Of knowing and possessing rarities 
Makes me so skilful I dare undertake 
To pick a sallet out of Diascorides 
Shall feast the Doctor's college with rare practices 
Stranger than Aeson's restitution 
To youth by Magic. 44 



Nor Pliny sir, nor Garner ever made 
Description of a creature, but I have 
Some particle thing; and for antiquity 
I do not store up under any Grecian; 

Your Roman antiques are but modern toyes 
Compared to them. 45 



My triall's such 
Of anything I own, all the impostors 
That ever made antiquity ridiculous 

Cannot deceive me. If I light upon 
Aught that's above my skill, I have recourse, 

To those whose judgment at the second view 
(If not the first) will tell me what Philosopher 
That eyelesse, mouthlesse statue is, 
And who the workman was, though since his death 
Thousands of years have been revolv'd. 46 

2 

In the Masque, Nabbes finds the most appropriate form for his courtly 

theme, the varying kinds of love, a theme culminating in praise of the 

nobler affections based according to the Platonic theory upon the divine 

in the human soul. Of his three Masques, Microcosmus was the only 

44 Act. IV; 1, 54. 
« Act IV; 1, 53, 

48 Act IV; 1, 56. 



18 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 

one acted. The ordering of its theme as well as its regular division 
into acts, taken with other characteristics make it similar in construction 
to Hannibal and Scipio, and point to a date of composition near that 
inferred by the present study, for that tragedy, both works probably 
antedating Covent Garden.* 7 

Microcosmus, a Morrall Masque allegorizes the rule of the divine in 
human life as expressed in a reasonable ordering of the affections. Nature 
and Janus, figures of eternal Providence, try in vain to harmonize the 
four elements for man's creation until Nature appeals to Love as the 
harmonizing and creative power of the Universe. Physander, the newly 
created man, is united by Nature and Love to Bellamima the Soul, who 
is attended by the genii of good and of evil. From this point until near 
the close of the play, the allegorical dominates to the extent of a near 
return in content and form, to the prodigal idea in the late morality 
play, such as Mundus et Infans, 1523, and Lusty Juvenilis.* 8 There 
is also much in Microcosmus that suggests a near acquaintance on the 
part of Nabbes, with the moralized Terentian dialogues of Hroswitha 
a Saxon priestess of the tenth century. 

Physander falls a prey to sensuality and is reduced to dispair, at 
which crisis he is rescued by the constant Bellamina. He is placed 
under the discipline of Temperance who restores him with the aid of 
Fortitude, Justice and Prudence, through a regimen of strict frugality. 

Let the earth be his bed; this rock be his pillow; 

His curtains heaven; the murmur of this water 

Instead of music, charm him into sleepe, 

And for the cates which gluttony invents 

To make it call'd an art, confected juice 

Of Pontick nuts, and Idumean palmes 

Candy'd with Ebosian sugar, lampreys guts 

Fetch t from Carpathian straights, and such like 

Wantonness. Let him eat sparingly of what the earth 

Produceth freely, or is, where 'tis barren, 

Enforct by industrye. 

In the bright robes of immortalitye. 

. . . Rewards will only crowne 
The end of a well prosecuted good, 
Philosophy, religion, solitude, 

47 Microcosmus, a Morrall Maske, "Presented (no date) with generall liking at 
the private house in Salisbury Court. ..." Printed 1637. 

48 1523, by Wynkin de Worde. Lusty Juventus, by R. Wever. See Hazlitt- 
Dodsley, I-II, 1574. 



THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 19 

And labour waite on Temperance, in these, 
Desire is bounded; they instruct the mind's 
And bodie's actions. 'Tis lascivious ease 
That gives the first beginning to all ills." 49 

Phy Sander's reception of Prudence is an example of the spirit in which 
he accepts the entire heroic regimen. 

I do embrace thy fellowship, 
Prudence, thou virtue of the mind, by which 
We do consult of all that's good or evill 
Conducing to felicity. Direct 
My thoughts and actions by the rule of reason, 
Teach me contempt of all inferior vanities'; 
Pride in a marble portall guilded o're; 
Assyrian carpets; chayres of ivory; 
The luxury of a stupendious house; 
Garments perfum'd; ghummes valu'd not for use. 
But needlesse ornament; a sumptious table, 
And all the baytes of sense. 50 

The action closes with a return to the form of the Masque, Love sur- 
rounded by the four Stoic virtues named above, enthrone and crown 
Physander and Bellamina, joint sovereigns of an Elysium whose 
"Elysii incolae" are gloriously habited and alike. 

Welcome, welcome happy payre, 

To these abodes, where spicie ayre 

Breathes perfumes, and every sense 

Doth find his objects excellence. 

Where's no heate, nor cold extreme; 

No Winter's ice, nor summer's scorching beame, 

Where's no sun, yet never night, 

Day always springing from eternall light. 

A chorus completes the static perfection of this classical stage Elysium. 

All mortall sufferings layd aside, 
Here in endlesse blisse abide. 51 

The songs of Microcosmus like those of his plays in general, exhibit a 
lyric talent for Nabbes beyond that displayed in his miscellaneous poems, 
a result somewhat at variance with the fact that the didactic themes 
of his masques are not highly conducive to lyric art. The term, hymnic, 
perhaps best describes the melody of the songs of Misrocosmus. 

49 Microcosmus IV, pp. 202-204, Vol. II, Bullen. 

50 Microcosmus V, p. 205, Vol. II, Bullen. 

51 Act V.: p. 218, Bullen, Vol. II. 



20 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 

For an authoritative description of the aim both artistic and ethical 
in this masque of Nabbes, the lines prefixed by his unidentified friend, 
Will CuFaude, are best. 

Seeing thy Microcosmus I began 
To contemplate the parts that make up man, 
A little World. I found each Morall right: 
All was instruction mingled with delight, 
Nor are thine like those poets' looser rimes 
That waste upon the humours of the times ! 
But thou doth make by thy poetick rage 
A schoole of Virtue of a common Stage. 
Me thinks the ghosts of Stoicks vexe to see 
Their doctrine in a masque unmasked by thee, 
Thou mak'st it to be exprest by action more, 
Than was contained in all their Books before. 

The Springs Glory carries the favorite theme of Nabbes', that of 
Temperance centering in the courtly topic of the day: 

Love ought to be Platonick and Divine 

Such as is only kindled and doth shine 

With beames that may all dark effects controule 

In the refined parts of the glorious soul. 62 

In this masque Cyprean Venus, protectress of perfect love, contests for 
honors above Ceres and Bacchus whom she decries as ministering wholly 
to the senses. The debate is referred for decision to Christmas and 
Shrovetide, who contend in antemasque for supremacy in judgment. 
Shrovetide as victor favors Ceres and Bacchus; but Venus gains a new 
champion in Lean Lent who in contest with Christmas furnishes another 
antemasque. Lent is finally supported by such harbingers of Spring 
as budding trees, and greening meadows where beggars dance to bagpipe 
and song. Spring enters as judge and harmonizer of discord. She 
excludes Bacchus and reconciles Ceres and Venus as complementary in 
Nature's scheme. 

Venus Deity 
Is powerful over all; and Ceres gives 
Each that hath being, that by which he lives, 
Yet many times excesse prevents the end . . . 
Of pure intention; and extremes extend 
Their powers to undoe those acts are free 
In their own natures from impuritie. 



"P. 28, Bullen, V. 2. Spring's Glory, Pr. 1639. 



THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 

In me let Temperance teach you to apply 
Things to their best ends; and to rectifye 
All motions that intend effects beside 
What may run cleere and curant with the tide 
Of purest love: In which let all your jarres 
Be reconcil'd and finish your sterne Warres. 63 

The =ong and chorus with which Spring is ushered in, is a brilliant 
bit of seventeenth century pastoral, with some good phrasing that again 
recalls Spenser in his nearest approach to nature. 

See, see a Metamorphosis, 

The late Gray Field now verdant is, 

The son with warme beames glads the earth, 

And to the springing flowers 

He gives a new and lively birth 

By th' ayde of gentle showers, 

The lambes no longer bleate for cold, 

Nor cry for succour from the old: 

But friske and play with confidence 

Like emblems of true innocence. 

The quatrain of the chorus: 

The cheerfull birds their voyces straine, 
The Cuckoo's hoarse for want of raine, 
The Nightingale doth sweetly sing 
To welcome in the joyfull spring. 

And Spring's descriptive lines 

The Wind's not rugged now, but calme and fayre, 
Sweepe flowery Gardens, and perfume the ayre. 
The Wood's shrill choristers (whose frozen throtes 
Late wanted motion) now hath found their notes; 
Strayning their little organes to sound high, 
And teach men art from Nature's harmony. 

in their rugged melody recall that of the best lines of The Shepherd's 
Calendar. 

11 A Presentation intended for the Prince his Highness, on his birthday, 
May 29 1638, annually celebrated," is a wreath of royal praise artfully 
wrought, with time as the initiator of the masque. The young Prince 
is crowned with the congratulation of May who adjudges that the 
"Morisk-dance," her own peculiar past-time is "fitter for course ones 
and the multitude," 

63 P. 235. Spring's Glory, Pr. 1639. 



22 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 

I have none that are 

Worthy his high acceptance : they are far 
Inferiour to the things that should set forth 
The fullness of his glory and his worth. 

This Masque carries humorous comment upon almanac impostors whom 
time and fairweather undertake to put out of business, but happily do 
not succeed until after the almanac makers transformed into "horned 
satyres" by the ale they drink to the prince's health, have performed in 
antemasque. After their dance in which the horns disappear and their 
wonted form is regained, Time reappears to drive away the almanac 
makers and to bring in May attended by Flora and Vertumnus. Amid 
a song of birds in "a glorious expression of Elysium," appear the shades 
of the former Eight Princes of Wales, 

. . . whose histories 
Shall be instruction, and their memories 
Present Heroick actions to their mind, 
Their vertues he shall strictly imitate 
And make those vertues awfull over fate. 

The Princes are saluted by the masquers who place themselves in a 
figure for the dance and song which with Time's epilogue and the chorus 
complete the masque. 

From th' earth where honour long hath slept, 

And noblest dust as treasure kept, 

By hallowing clay hath made it shine 

More glorious than an Indian mine, 

These brave Heroick shadowes come 

To sport in this Elysium. 

From th ' Ayre, or from the Spheares above 

As they in perfect concord move, 

Let Musick sound, and such as may 

Equall his harpe that rules the day. 

Thus do we welcome you tonight 

Unto our mansion of delight. 

The royal compliment is completed in the chorus. 

For theirs and this do both agree 
In all but the Eternitie. 

3 
As a tragic dramatist, Nabbes has among his critics, lower rank 
than as a writer of masques and of comedy. Of his two tragedies, 
Hannibal and Scipio, and The Unfortunate Mother, the latter is considered 



THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 23 

the inferior, by all critics with the single exception of Genest. Though 
this critic regards it as a very good play, he possibly reiterates the favor- 
able comment of certain critics contemporary with Nabbes. 54 The 
tone of latter day criticism may be summed up in Bullen's, "It is a play 
in five acts and written in verse, and there is really nothing more to say. 
I find it impossible to feel the slightest interest in any of the characters. 55 
The scene of The Unfortunate Mother is the court of Ferrara. The 
action is developed through the Machiavellian intrigue of the prime 
minister, Corvino, who has undertaken to shield the imperilled reputa- 
tion of the late Duke and his Duchess, now the Dowager, Infelice, by 
preserving with them a secret involving the destiny of the three young 
princes two of whom Corvino has brought up as his own sons. Corvino's 
intrigue is supplemented by that of a crone, Cardente, and the two 
dominate the action to its bitter ending, involving the miserable death of 
the Duchess and her innocent but deluded children. After all the 
principal characters of the play have fallen either by the sword or by 
poison or else have died of grief, and Corvino has been sentenced to 
execution, Macario, the young Duke who succeeds to the rule, pronounces 
in the closing lines of the tragedy, the moral already appalingly apparent. 

"Lust and ambition are two means of evils, 
That practis'd by their owners make them devills." 

The simple action which follows rigidly the misdirected villany of Cor- 
vino is unrelieved by pathos even in those who suffer most, and in effect, it 
repels the reader. That Nabbes over-reached in a carefully planned 
theory for his tragedy is proved by the uniformly excellent style of the 
piece, by the tone of his friendly critics named above, and by the Proeme 
to the Reader. In the dedication of the printed tragedy to Richard 
Braithwaite Esquire, the author says ... "I can accuse myselfe of 
no errour in it more than a nice curiosity which notwithstanding I must 
boast to be without a precedent in the method; where I have denied 
myself much liberty that may be allow'd a Poet from old example, and 
new establishh't custome." Part of the author's "nice curiosity" in 
the method consists in his rigid adherence to the unities. Even his 
unity of action centers too rigidly in Corvino's intrigue, designed to 
preserve the secret of the Duchess and to serve thereby his own ambition. 
There is need of greater elaboration of character, situation and scene to 
secure contrast and shading for the harsh repulsiveness of the double 

64 See above, p. 13. 

65 Introd. p. xvii, V. I. 



24 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 

villany of Corvino and his instrument Cardente. The Proeme to the 
Reader promises a precision in observing the unities, by exclusion of 
bombast, avoidance of obscurity on the one hand and of over detail on 
the other, leaving nothing to be inferred or to be revealed at the close. 
The author congratulates himself upon "a constant scene of two 
hours' action, " and the play justifies the claim. 56 The place is unchanged 
throughout : The first act is in the presence ; the second is in the chamber 
of the Duchess; the third is in the presence; the fourth takes place in the 
gallery; the fifth, in the grove; all in and around the palace at Ferrara. 
The entire action is brought within the space of the day upon which it 
opens. Despite his observance of strict method and avoidance of 
traditional dramatic sins, the author anticipates detraction: 

Here are no bombast raptures swelling high, 
To plucke Jove and the rest down from the sky: 
Here is no sense that must by thee be scann'd 
Before thou canst the meaning understand; 
No politician tells his plots unto 
Those in the Pit, and what he means to do; 
But now methinks I heare some Critick say, 
All those left out there's nothing in the play. 57 

Whether consciously or not on Bullen's part, his comment upon The 
Unfortunate Mother paraphrases the author's expected criticism: so 
prone have been the critics of Nabbes to repeat his own comment. 



IV 

The Tragedy, "Hannibal and Scipio" 
It is apparent that in The Unfortunate Mother, Nabbes missed the 
artistic economy of strict method in his effort to avoid faults incident 
to the loose construction of his first tragedy Hannibal and Scipio. It 
seems probable that a contemporary stickler for the unities had objected 
to the frequent change of place in Hannibal and Scipio if not also to 
qualities that bordered upon bombast. Baker's Companion to the Play 
House, published after the unities had been accepted in England as 
dramatic essentials, and fully a century and a quarter after Hannibal 
and Scipio had been acted, has the following criticism of this tragedy. 
"The unity of place is most excessively broken in upon, the scene of the 

56 ' A constant scene: The business it intended. /The two hours time of action 
comprehended." 

« Bullen V, II, p. 87. 



THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 25 

first act lying in Capua, of the second, at the Court of Syphax, of the 
third, at Utica, of the fourth, at Carthage, and of the fifth, in Bythinia. " 58 
Baker could have made a similar comment upon its violation of the 
unity of time, though not so justly, of lack in unity of action. Histori- 
cally, there are nine years between the opening of the action at Capua, 
and that of the second act at Cirta. The third act at Utica takes place 
two years later; the fourth at Carthage with the battle of Zama, takes 
place two years later still. From Zama to Hannibal's death at the Court 
of Prussias, in Bythinia, about nineteen more years elapse. 59 This des- 
cription of Hannibal and Scipio proves sufficiently that it follows the 
extreme in construction opposite to that of The Unfortunate Mother. 
These two extremes are natural to a beginner in the writing of Tragedy. 
There is no desire to claim for Nabbes more dramatic talent than was 
his own, but judging from his development in the construction of Comedy, 
between Covent Garden and The Bride, and the similar rate of improve- 
ment in the writing of his three masques, a third tragedy might have shown 
better results had the opportunity to write another been given him in 
the brief years following the printing of The Unfortunate Mother, after 
which we hear no more of him. Nabbes had not Webster's genius and 
probably neither the talent of Shirley nor that of Ford; but the greater 
tragedies of these men, two at most for each, were as springs in a desert 
where for number and for aridity the comedies of the minor dramatists 
of the age are as the sands. Tragedy had seen its day, popularly con- 
sidered, and a dramatist must have been not only serious-minded, but 
also heroic to undertake the ungrateful task of writing tragedy, at that 
late day of the old drama. 

From the characteristics given above, the tragedy Hannibal and 
Scipio may be classed with plays on history and classical myth, a type 
having numerous and varied examples in the earlier Elizabethan drama. 60 
This type has much resemblance to the early chronicle play, in its loose- 
ness of structure, in its epic quality of narrative, as well as in its admit- 
ting legend and romantic incident. With all its disregard, however, 
for the conventional unities of time and place, Hannibal and Scipio is 
artistically unified through a species of local coloring which in dramatic 
effect far exceeds a strict adherence to chronology and locality, or even 
to fact in character and event. The attention to local coloring and at- 
mosphere in the tragedy of Hannibal and Scipio recalls to an extent 

58 Baker's Companion to the Play House, London, 1764 V. I. 
69 See Momson, Hist, of Rome, V. II, Ch's 4, 5, 6. 
60 Cf. Schelling, Elizab. Dr. V, II, pp. 45, 46, 137. 



26 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 

Jonson's method in tragedy; but Jonson's local coloring is secured through 
strict historical accuracy, whereas the type of play to which Hannibal 
and Scipio belongs, mingles myth and fact indiscriminately. More- 
over, in Hannibal and Scipio the characters and action take substance 
and form largely from the philosophy of life which Hannibal and Scipio 
respectively are reputed to have held. This romantic employment of 
myth and local coloring with theories of conduct, are interdependent 
in the play. For example, the opening scene at Capua where legend 
holds that Hannibal fell in love with a lady of Salapia and that his 
soldiers were here made effeminate with idle pleasures, is not only 
definitely, but also dramatically located by textual allusion to 
Massicus, the famous Campanian wine, as well as by mention of im- 
ported luxuries in which Capua of all Italian towns indulged the most. 61 
Again, allusions drawn from the entire range of the Cytherean myth 
tone the opening scenes to an extreme of sensuous beauty loved by the 
Capuans, and to which the more frugal Romans of that period attri- 
buted the beginning of Hannibal's decline and of Scipio's ascendency. 62 
The rivalry between Hannibal nurtured in the nature-worship of ancient 
Carthage, and Scipio disciplined in the Stoic philosophy, and represen- 
tative of Rome's early prowess, has accentuation in environment as 
background for character contrast. 

The dramatist's avowed deviation from historical record in certain 
situations "to fit the stage" and "scene," is in harmony with the same 
emphasis upon environment in the earlier stages of the play. 63 For 
example, the deviation from record in bringing Hannibal instead of 
Hasdrubal, to the chance meeting with Scipio at the court of Syphax in 
Cirta, contributes the more to dramatic unity that it is localized by 
textual allusion to Cirta's geographical bearings by sea from Spain where 
the early exploits of the two generals had succeeded each other in the 
rivalry between Carthage and Rome. 64 In the meeting at Cirta, Hanni- 
bal's craft and the narrow range of his experience bound up as it is with 
his hatred of Rome, are contrasted with the frank and open dealing of 
the many-sided mind of Scipio. Hannibal applies here even his most 
personal experience, his love for the Salapian lady, to the sole aim of 
his existence, to injure Rome. 

61 Q. A. I, 1 & 2. 

62 Cf. Cicero, De Lege Agraria, II, 35 " . . . deinde ea luxuries, quae ipsum Hanni- 
balem, armis etiam turn invictum, voluptate vicit." 
"Cf. Prologue, Q. 11. 15-17. 
"Q. II: 3. 



THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS N ABBES 27 

At the climax of Hannibal's intrigue to outwit Scipio and attach 
Syphax to Carthage, a messenger announces the approach of a ship 
which brings the beautiful Carthaginian princess, Sophonisba, to the 
court of Syphax. The stately ship and its burden recall the rivalry 
between Rome and Carthage for the sea, and emphasizes Hannibal's 
phrase, "The not to be resisted power of beauty," connecting his own 
experience at Capua with Sophonisba's patriotic sacrifice throughout 
her role in the play, as destined by hereditary environment. 65 Wherever 
Sophonisba appears in the play she carries the suggestion of mingled 
cults of rival Roman and Carthaginian deities, but with the assured 
sense of her innate devotion to her ancestral gods of Carthage. This 
is shown in the first thought of Syphax upon her arrival. 

Receive her with religious ceremony, 
Perfume the ayre with incense richer then 
The Phoenix funerall pile. Let harmony 
Breath out her soule at every artist's touch, 
Cover the pavement which her steps must hallow 
With Persian Tapestrie. 66 

Where in the climax of her role, Sophonisba takes poison to escape 
Scipio's triumph, her dialogue with Massanissa combines allusion to 
Phoenician nature-worship with a heroism rivalling that of the stoic 
in her refusal of Massanissa's prayer to Aesculapius, and in sustaining 
her death in self-immolation on the altar of her country, Carthage. 

Why doth Massanissa 
Invoke vaine aide? ' The gods are mercifull 
In their denying it: and 'tis best justice 

That I should dye 

The end, my countrie's good, and the first love 
I bore thee Massanissa, Now let Scipio 
Boast of his conquest; Sophonisba is 
Her owne subverter. 67 

The actions at Utica and at Carthage, between Syphax for Carthage 
and Massanissa for Rome, narrated by Lelius to Scipio, and by another 
messenger to the Carthaginian Senate, are more definitely localized in 
following closely the historical record. The leaders in these battles 
are but instruments of the respective commanders, Hannibal and Scipio 
in whom the results of the conflict increasingly center; the purpose from 

« 5 Q. 11. 823, 11:5. 

69 Q. 11. 702-707, 11:5. 

" 7 Q. 11. 1171-1200, A. 111:4. 



28 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 

the beginning of the play having been to bring the two heroes into con- 
trast in every scene. The messenger's description of the meeting of 
Hannibal and Scipio at Zama, before the battle, shows them equally 
matched for one brief moment, 

Before the battaile joyn'd 
The world's two Captaines (for besides them none 
Merits the name in equall competition) 
Mett to have conference : where for a space 
They stood astonish't at each others presence, 
And like two comets tilting in the ayre 
'Gainst one another, shot prodigious flame 
From either's eyes; and with a counter change 
Of fierce and angry lookes seem'ed to begin 
An eagre fight : till Hanniball broke silence 
And mov'd a peace: which Scipio . . . refused. 68 

From this point Rome in the personality of Scipio, controls the action 
of the tragedy. Rome's right to spoils of war, urged by Scipio, forces 
Massanissa to surrender Sophonisba, though the vow he had made not 
to deliver her to Roman triumph, is still to him sacred as the altars of 
his Numidian gods. After Sophonisba's death, Scipio re-establishes 
Massanissa's shaken confidence by an act of self-conquest in restoring 
a beautiful Spanish captive to her betrothed husband. 69 When the 
Carthaginian senate shields itself under the stigma of its banishment 
of Hannibal, Scipio exhibits his perfect justice in censuring such ingrati- 
tude. 

The action in Bithinia which closes the tragedy, all but resolves 
localization as well as chronology into the one dramatic unity of the 
typical morality play, that of character contrast. Scipio stands here 
no longer for the promise of the young Roman Republic; he has estab- 
lished her supremacy. His brief debate with Hannibal upon the com- 
parative merits of commanders, relegates their martial deeds to the past 
with those of Alexander and Pyrrhus. 70 They are now contrasted as 
rival types of manhood, and theirs is a contest between principles for 
the conduct of life, in which Scipio is again to gain in Hannibal's loss. 
Scipio the man, is a product of the Stoic philosophy exhibited in Xeno- 
phon's hero-romance, Cyropedia; Hannibal the man, is the product of a 
nature cult disciplined in the fortunes of war. 

98 Q. 1298-1310, A. IV :1. 
88 Q. 1180-1200, A 111:4. 
70 Q. V.:2 11. 1899-1905. 



THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS N ABBES 29 

Sdp. From this Paedia 

I have been truly morall; th' institutions 
Have beene my guides in every action 
Which I did either as a man, or Prince, 
Cyrus himselfe, to whom they were directed, 
Pursu'd them not so strictly as I have. 

Man 

From outward accidents should not derive 
The knowledge of himselfe: for so hee's made 
The creature of beginnings over which 
His vertue may command: Fortune and chance. 
When he by speculation hath inform'd 
His divine part hee's perfect; and 'till then 
But a rough matter, onely capable 
Of better forme. It oft begets my wonder 
That thou a rude Barbarian, ignorant 
Of all art, but of Warres, which custome onely 
Hath (being joined to thy first nature) taught thee, 
Shouldst know so much of man. 71 
Han. I study man 

Better from practice than thou canst from books. 
Thy learning's but opinion, mine knowne truth; 
Subject to no grosse errours, such as cannot 
Be reconcil'd but by production 
Of new and greater. Did thy learned Masters 
Of arts, with whom even arm'd thou hast converst 
Before a battayle joyn'd (if fame speak truth) 
By their instructions showe thee surer wayes 
To victory, than Fortune joyn'd to valour, 
And a full strength of men. 
Scip. That which consists, 

In action only, and th' event depends 
Upon no certain rule demonstrative, 
Is fates not reasons. 72 

Except for the remonstrance of Prusias that the heroes are in a court 
rather than in a "Parliament of souldiers," the location might better 
have been a Senecan lecture hall than Bythinia to which by a skillful 
abridgement of history, the meeting-place of the heroes has been changed 
from the court of Antiochus, at Ephesus. 

The episode described above and the ensuing debate regarding Hanni- 
bal's safety, ending in his self-inflicted death by poison, have the struc- 
ture of tragic scenes in the early plays of Classical history and, in a 
measure make, this last act a sort of sequel play to the first four acts. 

»Q. 11. 1859-1889, A. V:2. 
71 Q. 11. 1957 A. V, last scene. 



30 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 

From a strictly dramatic consideration, the first four acts have furnished 
all that is essential to a tragedy. The play has opened in regular manner 
at a critical point in the careers of the heroes; Hannibal at the summit 
of Fortune's wheel after his victory at Cannae too great to be repeated 
in results, is surrounded by the temptations of Capua; whereas Scipio, 
the new Roman commander and Consul, in the first flush of victory at 
New Carthage and Saguntum, sees Fortune in the ascendant. The 
tragic point in Hannibal's character is that typical of great men. With 
Hannibal it consisted in an error of judgment in delaying at Capua 
instead of following up his victory; but the dramatist has taken care 
that this error should not decline to vice. Hannibal's momentary deflec- 
tion from valor to love is differentiated from that of his subordinates 
in the greater nobility of soul in Hannibal, and in the Salapian gentle- 
woman who recalls to him the valorous deeds which have won her admira- 
tion. Hannibal's illusion was dispelled in its beginning by the messen- 
ger's report of Scipio's victory in Spain and followed immediately by 
Bomilcar's message for the army's recall to Carthage. The action has 
had tragic climax not only in Hannibal's defeat at Zama, but also in 
the death of Sophonisba whose charm Hannibal, profiting by his own 
experience at Capua, had used to regain the lost prestige of Carthage. 
Sophonisba's influence for Carthage justifies Scipio's valuation of her 
after her death. 

In that weake woman 
Halfe Carthage's strength is gone. 73 

Nabbes' didacticism however is not wholly responsible for the fifth 
act in which to set forth Hannibal's and Scipio's character-contest. 
For this the rambling construction of the early historical play is partly 
responsible, as well as early English stage tradition which sealed its 
tragedy abundantly with death. Scipio therefore closes the fourth act 
by initiating the motive for the last act and final catastrophe in the death 
of Hannibal. 

Wee'l hunt this Affrick Lion 

Into a stronger toyle. Fame shall waite on us 

Till we have loaded her, and that she see 

Our triumph in his tragedy. 74 

Scipio's change of attitude to a more conciliatory tone in the last act is 
doubtless due to the dramatist's desire to put the Roman hero in the 
light of a still greater triumph of self-conquest: 

"Q. 1245-46. A. III:v. 
74 Q. 11. 1625-78, A. IV :5. 



THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 31 

Hannibal I know 
Hath put off the rough habit which his mind 
Was lately wrapt in : and since chance hath made him 
The subject of my conquest, in the peace 
Rome hath allow'd his country (the conditions 
Being strictly kept) all past contentions 
Must lose their memory, and after strifes 
Be stifled in their first birth by prevention. 
I would acknowledge my ambition 
Bore my thoughts higher than my countries good, 
Or her enlargement only. Had my fortune 
Captiv'd the person of great Hannibal, 
My triumph should out-vye all the rich pomps 
That ever made Rome shine. 75 

Hannibal has reason to doubt Scipio's assurance for his safety, especially 
when informed that Roman soldiers surround his retreat. The situa- 
tion is perhaps more dramatic in leaving Hannibal's safety a problem 
and thus truer to life. The dramatist's fidelity to the historical Roman 
attitude toward Hannibal, as well as his fidelity to Hannibal's character, 
portrays the hero to the last an enemy to Rome, firm in conviction of 
Scipio's intent to betray him, and, as Scipio reminds him, possibly 
forging by this act of mental injustice, fetters for his own spiritual life. 
This subtle suggestion of a spiritual tragedy completing Hannibal's 
tragedy of death, gives to his character, devoted as it has been from his 
oath on the burning altar, at nine years of age, a higher dramatic unity 
throughout the play. As he sacrificed his private affections for Carthage 
and for her, narrowed his mind to one idea, that of eternal enmity to 
Rome, so in his banishment and self-inflicted death, he offered upon the 
altar of Carthage his last and richest sacrifice, that of his spiritual free- 
dom. 

The patriotic extreme in Hannibal's death scene is offset dramatically 
by the crowning point in the career of Scipio in whom the soldier ready 
at his country's need, gave way in leisure to the practical philosopher 
who understood Rome's failings and could evade their results because 
he had witnessed the ingratitude of Carthage to Hannibal. 

Carthage 

Thy base ingratitude to him whose merit 

But justly challenged all that thou could'st owne 

Shall teach me a prevention, Solitude 

«Q. 11. 1824-1836, A. V:2. 



32 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 

Is the soules best companion. At Linturnum 
My country villa I will terminate 
My after life free from mens flatteries, 
And feare of their leane envie. 



V 

The Question Concerning "A Former Play" 

The preceding analysis of the tragedy, Hannibal and Scipio pointed 
to an unevenness of structure which at times amounts nearly to a con- 
tradiction of dramatic purpose. For example, in the closing act, the 
emphasis upon Scipio's magnanimity toward Hannibal in assurance of 
his safety, is followed by a more verbal return to the historical record 
with the appearance of armed soldiers surrounding Hannibal with intent 
to capture him in accordance with Scipio's purpose expressed in the 
closing lines of the fourth act, . . . "Wee'l hunt this Affrick Lion 
into a stronger toyle. / Fame shall waite on us. / Till we, have loaded 
her, and that she see. / Out triumph finisht in his tragedy." 76 The 
style of the play throughout has been described as, at times, following 
the historical record, and at other times, dealing in highly sententious 
and speculative speeches, in most instances combined with a wealth of 
classical allusion and scenic effect. 77 The two styles are at times in such 
direct contrast as to favor the inference that this tragedy is possibly a 
revision of an older play; that the portions of nearly epic-narrative style 
represent more nearly the older play, whereas the scenes characterized 
by sententious contrast and sometimes heightened in effect by classical 
allusion, show a more complete revision by the later dramatist. It is 
the purpose of the following discussion to investigate the evidence for 
this inference. 

In his Prologue to the tragedy, which was probably written somewhat 
later than the play itself, the author anticipates question on the part 
of his critics, as to the originality of the plot. After contrasting the 
noisy performance at the larger theatre to the advantage of the circum- 
stances under which his play is to be given, the dramatist continues: — 

Our Spheares 

Have better musick to delight your eares, 

And not a straine that's old, though some would task 

His borrowing from a former play. 78 

78 Q. 11. 1913. Act V (last scene); Q. 11. 1675. Act IV, (last scene). 

77 Act 1: 11:5. Cf. Act III: 1-5. Also 3, Q. 11. 950. 

78 Q. (Prologue) 11. 26-29. 



THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 33 

Bullen's note on the allusion to "a former play" suggests a possible 
influence from Marston's Sophonisba, which had been published in 1606. 7S 
In the same note Bullen recalls a non-extant Hannibal and Scipio by 
William Rankin and Richard Hathwaye, mentioned by Henslowe as 
acted in 1600-1, at the Fortune theatre. 80 This play in turn will recall 
the also non-extant Hannibal and Hermes, or Worse 'Feared than Hurt, 
collaborated in 1598, by Wilson, Drayton and Dekker. 81 An obstacle 
to the inference of Nabbes' indebtedness to either of these two plays 
last named, lies in the doubt whether they were extant when Nabbes 
wrote his play. That the Hannibal and Hermes had some close con- 
nection with the Hannibal and Scipio of the Fortune, is supported by 
the fact that the Admiral's company for which Wilson, Drayton and 
Dekker also had written, was received by the New Fortune at its com- 
pletion in 1600. It is possible that their Hannibal and Hermes of 1598, 
was the basis of the Hannibal and Scipio of the Fortune. If either of 
these plays survived the burning of that theatre, there seems to be no 
mention of them at least, after the rebuilding of the Fortune in 1624. 82 
On the other hand the reference in the prologue, to the contrast between 
the quiet performance of his play and that of the cruder and perhaps 
earlier theatre, is significant when associated with Nabbes' mention of " a 
former play." That Nabbes' first tragedy coincides so nearly in sub- 
ject with one of Dekker's early attempts at play writing, is also inter- 
esting, occuring as it did in Dekker's last years when the younger drama- 
tist possibly knew him in London. Even if the Hannibal and Scipio, 
of 1601, had perished with the old Fortune theatre, it is yet possible that 
the manuscript of the Hannibal and Hermes of 1598, survived with 
Dekker as late as 1635 or 1637. Even if these two plays were non- 
extant when Nabbes wrote his tragedy, the frequent reference to the 
fortunes of Hannibal, made in other plays written within the decade 
before the appearance of Nabbes' tragedy, shows that the earlier plays 
on Hannibal were still current themes for allusion upon the stage. For 
example, Thomas May's tragedy of Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, which 
appeared in 1626, contains a specific allusion made at Cleopatra's feast, 
to Hannibal's luxury at Capua, an allusion which was possibly suggested 
by a play rather than drawn directly from history. 83 

79 Sophonisba or The Wonder of Women. See Bullen, Ed. V. I, p. 190. Cf. 
Introd. VI, p. 441. 

80 Henslowe's Diary, Gregg Ed. (2 V. I) VI Sect. 60. 

81 Henslowe's Diary, V. I, Gregg Ed. 2 V. Sect. 90. 

82 Cf. Schilling Elizabethan Drama, V. I. Introd. XXVI. 
n Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt. 1 :3 (1654) acted 1626. 



34 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 

A possibility of Nabbes' indebtedness to either of the two plays 
named, or even to a still earlier play possibly used as a basis for those 
two plays, would be strengthened if it were probable that these plays 
contained the story of Sophonisba. Ward thinks that the earlier and 
also non-extant History of Cipio Africanus, acted at Whitehall, in 1579- 
80, by the children of Pauls, may be supposed to have included the 
Sophonisba story. 84 Though Ward does not give the basis of his supposi- 
tion, the three plays named, derived as they possibly were, in part, at 
least, from Livy's History of Rome, or else from a work based upon 
Livy, would probably follow, after the manner of other chronicle plays, 
the complete trend of incident connected with the character of the 
play. It is reasonable to suppose that if the play of Cipio Africanus 
contained the incident of Hannibal's Capuan pleasures, it also contained 
the Sophonisba incident so closely associated with the fortunes of Syphax 
whose revolt from Rome to Carthage is inseparable from the fortunes 
of Hannibal and S cipio. 

The Cipio Africanus 1579-80, is probably alluded to in Gosson's 
School of Abuse, published in 1579. In his inveighment against fencing, 
gaming and drama, he makes exception of plays which enforce a moral. 
In close connection with his commendation of such as Cataline's Con- 
spiracies he alludes to another play which shows how lack of vigilance 
may impair true valor. "Hannibal's power received more hurte in one 
daye's ease at Capua than in all the conflicts they had at Cannae. " 85 
In the same paragraph he commends for imitation, "Scipio (who) before 
he levied his forces to the Walles of Carthage gave his souldiers the print 
of the cittie in a cake to be devoured." If Gosson refers to the Revel's 
play of Cipio Africanus, as he probably does, Hannibal's defeat because 
of ease at Capua was a dominant motive, and there is a probability that 
it also contained the Spyhax and Sophonisba story of a kindred moral, 
so closely connected with the fate of Carthage. The play of Hannibal 
and Scipio, 1600-01, of the Fortune, and the Revel's Cipio Africanus, 
1579-80, judging from the title of the former, and from Gossen's prob- 
able reference to the latter, may be supposed to have had approximately 
the same basis, even if the former were not a combination of the latter 
with the Hannibal and Hermes of 1598, in which Dekker collaborated 
with Wilson and Drayton. 86 

84 Ward's Eng. Dr. Literature, V. I, p. 208. 

85 P. 39 Gosson's School of Abuse, reprinted for the Shak. Soc. London, 1841. 
"Henslowe 38, 39, V. 1 Gregg. 



THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 35 

Added to the consideration involved in Nabbes' allusion to "a former 
play," the probability that his Hannibal and Scipio is a revision of one 
of the earlier plays, is strengthened by the fact explained above, that the 
action of the tragedy is, unduly extended, and follows closely the cruder 
type of the history-play. At the same time, it admits classical myth 
in the vogue of Elizabethan and early seventeenth century drama. It 
also resembles plays of the earlier time in that its action depends for 
development upon a loose bringing together of the characters in con- 
trasting attitudes. These plays, it will be remembered, differed in 
kind; some, like Jonson's Sejanus and his Cataline, followed strictly the 
classical narrative, or else they emphasized the heroic note, as in the 
Dekker-Massinger's Virgin Martyr, Massinger's Roman Actor, Fletcher's 
Valentinian, May's Cleopatra and his Agrippina. Though Hannibal and 
Scipio has qualities belonging to both groups, it is classed more nearly 
with the latter tragedies from classical history treated romantically. 87 

With so casual an inquiry for the "former play" as has fallen to the 
general historian of the drama, and to the general editor of Nabbes works, 
it is not surprising that a fragment of a play in Latin verse, in which 
Hannibal is a prominent character, a manuscript belonging to the 
Bodleian Library, should have escaped the notice of Ward and Bullen. 88 
Though the title has not survived, the scene is Saguntum, with whose 
siege Hannibal opened the second Punic war. The fragment ends with 
the second scene of the second act. The characters speak in monologue 
of the Epic-narrative style, and generally make the exit individually 
or else in a group. There is no dialogue, and the chorus helps to supply 
the action. Brief as the fragment is, there is little doubt that it follows 
the Punica of Silius, beginning as it does with a prologue by Juno, and 
throughout its brief scenes of about two hundred and thirty five lines, 
taking its content in general, from the first three books of the Punica. 89 
Though the much mutilated fragment has no date, the handwriting is 
of the late sixteenth century. The Latin lettering is also of the early 
type. The fragment is bound, in early eighteenth century English mode, 
with other pamphlets among which is a copy of Andrew Boorde's Dietary 
of Health, bearing the date 1553. The volume came to the Bodleian 
with Malone's library in 1821. 89 Though the identity of the fragment 

87 Cf. Spelling's Elizabethan Drama, V. II, pp. 19, 28, 37. 

68 See List of Plays, p. 624, Schelling. Ed. 1909. 

89 For the history of the fragment as far as known, as well as for the transcript, 
a copy of which is given p. 53, I am indebted to the Librarian of the Bodleian. For 
its reference to the Punica for content in general, suggestion is given in "Ghosts . . . 
to Author." Q. 11. 20-22. 



36 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 

with the Punka in content, order of situation and event is quite possible, 
the dramatization of the epic has necessarily changed to a great extent 
the diction and construction, yet leaving the thought and spirit intact. 
It would appear that the situations selected from the epic, were first 
translated into English and retranslated into the Latin verse of the 
play. Judging by the fragment, the play did not slavishly follow the 
epic throughout its prosaic seventeen books which have interlarded 
Livy's third decade with Vergilian periphrasis, although it has retained 
so far, much of the Virgilian spirit, with its compression within two 
hundred and thirty-five lines, of the essentials of the first three books of 
the Punica. 90 The dramatist probably read thoroughly the Epic before 
attempting his play in which he has apparently developed from the con- 
tent of the Epic, a chorus and other senic and interpretative intermedii, 
such as the Ghost of Amilcer who appears upon the scene to ask whether 
Hannibal intends to carry out his childhood's oath against Rome, and 
thus prove himself worthy of his father, Amilcar. 91 Juno, with whose 
wrath Hannibal is described in the opening lines of the Epic, as having 
invested himself before the siege of Saguntum, appears, in the Frag- 
ment, in character, to embody that wrath in prologue. 92 Bostar, 
who, at the close of the third book of the epic, is described as inspiring 
the Cathagian heroes," "pugnae propriano amore, " has, as Boschus 
of the Fragment, infused this same spirit into the several ranks and types, 
of soldiers. The Lancer, the Archer, each declares his enthusiasm for 
battle to the extent that he is willing to brave the struggle alone and 
upon his own account. 93 

Though it is impossible to attempt an identification of the probably 
late sixteenth century manuscript with either the Cipio Africanus of 
1479-80, or the Hannibal and Hermes of 1598, or the Hannibal and Scipio 
of 1600-01, it is reasonable to suppose that if any identification were 
possible, it would be with a play of Latin title, and this would be Cipio 
Africanus belonging as it did to the type of plays designed for school 
and court. It is impossible however to say whether the revel's Cipio 
Africanus was an abstract direct from Livy, or whether it was influenced 
in any way by North's translation of Plutarch's parallel lives of Hannibal 
and Scipio which appeared in 1579. If as supposed, Gosson refers to 

90 The three books comprise 2096 11. 

91 Cf. Punka 1:81-135; see Fragment, 11. 180 ff. 

92 Cf. Punica 1; 35-55; see Fragment, 11. 1-35. 

93 See Fragment "Bolista," "Proiector Saxorum," "Lancia," "Sagittarius," 
11. 210-230. 



THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 37 

the Cipio Africanus, it was quite as sententious as Plutarch knew how 
to be. It is significant however that the reference to Scipio's feast 
before the Walls of Carthage which was mentioned above as possibly 
identifying the play mentioned by Gosson with the Cipio Africanus, 
bears some resemblance to the description by Silius of the encampment 
of Scipio's army before Carthage. After the taking of the city they gave 
libations on account of the booty and celebrated their victory with a 
feast. 

pradae libamina dantur 

Turn vacui curis vicino litore mensas 

Instituunt, festaque agitant convivia ludo. 94 

In regard to the possibility of identifying the fragment with the 
"former play" confessedly used by Nabbes, there is some evidence in 
its favor. The existence itself of this remnant of a Latin play which 
was possibly intact when Nabbes wrote his tragedy; the extent to which 
the vocabulary of the tragedy is of Latin derivation, and, with the excep- 
tion of the masques, to a degree byond Nabbes' other plays, even to the 
frequent inclusion of the Latin form of the word, are significant. Though 
the fragment opens and is broken off at Saguntum, whereas the tragedy 
of Nabbes opens with Hannibal's festivity at Capua, it is probable that 
Silius figures largely among Nabbes' various sources; for he is mentioned 
directly by Nabbes in the reminder of the Ghosts of Hannibal and Scipio 
that in contrast with his own unpaid pains and "cheap Phoebean" 
honors, 

The singer of the Punick wars had bayes 
Making our acts his subject; and thy prayse 
Should be no lesse. 95 

The appearance of Amilcar's ghost as used in the fragment, is in keeping 
with the appeal of Nabbes to the ghosts of Hannibal and Scipio, and with 
their reply which would suggest that Lucian, the clever satirist, inspired 
the author's quaintly humorous appeal 

What charm commands us hither to repayre? 
And once again salute the upper ayee? 
Would Lucian vexe our shaddows? make us tell 
Which of us holds priority in Hell? 



98 



94 Punka XV, 220, 235, especially 11. 262 and 272. 

96 See the "Ghosts ... to the Author," A 20-23. Cf. Lucian's "Dialogues of 
the Dead," XIII. 
96 Q. 11. 1-4. 



38 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 

The oath which Hannibal, according to tradition, took at nine years of 
age against Rome, figures largely in Silius, and dramatically in both the 
fragment and the play of Nabbes. It is probable that Silius gave sug- 
gestion for the comparison of Hannibal with Hercules who according to 
tradition, was the first to cross the Alps, though Appian also represents 
Hannibal as saying that none before himself except Hercules, had 
crossed the Alps. 97 It is not improbable that some rhetorical influence 
from such passages of the Punica as the soliloquy of Hercules upon the 
difficulties of his mountain journey, may have colored corresponding 
passages in the tragedy even when it draws the event more directly 
from Livy, Appian, or Plutarch. 98 The Herculean myth is the dominant 
motive underlying both the Punica and the tragedy of Nabbes. Both 
transfer the idea at will to describe either Hannibal or Scipio as occasion 
may suggest. For example, Silius transfers to Scipio immediately 
before his attempt to recapture Saguntum, the myth in which Virtue 
and Pleasure appeared in a dream and contended for the mastery over 
Hercules. 99 The same contest between temperance and pleasure is 
the informing motive of the Hannibal and Scipio of Nabbes. This 
contest is made for both heroes; the difference in the outcome lies in the 
individuality which in both men is largely the result of heredity and 
environment. 

The attitude of Silius to the story of Sophonisba is that of Livy and 
other patriotic Romans. It is reasonable to suppose that the play repre- 
sented by the fragment, followed Silius and, if so, it would add another 
possibility of its indentity with the Cipio Africanus; for the complimen- 
tary, and possible reference of the Puritan Gossen to the latter play, 
would logically involve such an attitude. In this point the tragedy, 
Hannibal nad Scipio, follows Appian, instead of Livy, and consequently 
differs in this from Silius and possibly from the fragment-play. In 
Scipio's magnanimity and self restraint shown in his restoration of a 
Spanish captive in safety to her friends, both Silius and Nabbes follow 
Livy in essentials, but both alike place this incident directly after the 
capture of Carthage; whereas the historian places it in Spain, after the 
capture of Saguntum. 100 

"Punica, Bk. 111:1. 490-495. Cp. Appian, V. II, p. 121 White's Edition. 

98 Livy XXI, 30-31, Appian, VII :1, Plutarch's Life of Hannibal, North Transl. 

99 Punica, XV; 17-148. See also Xenophon's Memorabilia, 11:2. 

100 Punica, XV:268 and Nabbes' Hannibal and Scipio Q, V:5, 1572-1640. Cf. 
Livy XXVI :50. 



THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 39 

The constant approach to an equality of prowess in the two heroes 
is characteristic of both Silius and Nabbes. The allusions, the choice 
of epithet in the more highly rhetorical portions of the tragedy, recall 
similar expressions in Silius; but the tragedy has elaborated its allusions 
from other sources for dramatic effect. As an illustration of the dif- 
ference, the opening scene of the tragedy, at Capua, the traditional 
winter quarters of Hannibal, where he was entertained with festivities, 
after his victory at Cannae, is heightened by allusion beyond the des- 
cription of the same scene by Silius, who evidently imitates closely the 
style of the corresponding scene of the Aeneid, the entertainment of 
Aeneas by Dido. 101 The beginning of Hannibal's revenge upon Rome, 
at Saguntum, described by the brief fragment, is omitted by the tragedy, 
except that his former victory is a splendid memory amid the festivity 
of Capua, to be interrupted by news of the recapture of Saguntum by 
Scipio. Consequently a direct bringing together of the two texts is 
impossible, and their only common ground apparently is in their general 
points of identity with the Punica. Considering its brevity, the frag- 
ment possibly has its due proportion of allusion and rhetorical phrasing 
conceived rather in the epic style of the opening books of the Punica, 
than in the scenic and dramatic style of the tragedy. 102 

In summary, the probability of this common ground in the Punica 
between the fragment and the Hannibal and Scipio of Nabbes, points 
to the possibility that the fragment is of the former play referred to by 
Nabbes in his prologue. This possibility is supported by the considera- 
tion that the fragment is the only play on the subject known to be 
extant in England. This possibility is further strengthened by the 
fact that the fragment is in Latin and that Nabbes' tragedy gives evi- 
dence of a Latin basis other than Livy. From the corresponding data 
of the above study it would seem that either the Punica itself was this 
basis or that else a play based upon the Punica was used. Nabbes 
grants the assumption that such a play was used, and this fragment is 
the only play known to be extant which gives evidence of having been 
based upon the Punica. 

101 Hannibal and Scipio 11:1-3, Q. 11. 1-160. Cf. Silius XI:261-483; Aeneid 
1:637-755. 

102 Frag. 1.12. Rutile cf. Punica Rutulo 1; 1.371-584, 11:541, and others. Frag. 
1. 61 ignis sicut /Etnaeus fuerit, cf. H. & S 111:4, Q. 1192.3. Frag. 1.181 quid facit 
Hannibal Belidae generis. ... Cf. Punica 1. 70-73 Belo numerabat. Frag. 1. 
227, ubi Patrio veneno Getica. ... Cf. Punica 1. 324; Geticae telluris . . . ven- 
eno. . . . Frag. 1.232-3 Cadmea domo et gentente digna cf. Punica 1. 106. 



40 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 



VI 
The Original Classic Sources and Influences for "Hannibal 

and Scipio" 

In his Prologue to Hannibal and Scipio, Nabbes characterizes his 
play as "from a rich subject drawn," a phrase justified in the story's 
almost incalculable amount and variety of Greek and Roman historical 
and mythical content. 103 The treatment of the story by Latin writers 
alone, ranges from fragments of Naevius and Ennius, with the detailed 
treatment in the several Greek and Roman historians, to the briefer 
mention by Roman poets, philosophers and satirists of the early, and 
the late Empire, who used the story of Hannibal's fortunes to mould a 
proverb and to point a moral. The revival of portions of the story 
by writers of the early Renaissance, especially by Petrarch, Boccacio, 
Bandello and others, made its content a source of current literary motive 
and allusion for novelist, poet and dramatist, as well as a theme for 
art in general. Sixteenth century enthusiasm for the classics gave the 
several characters of the story wider scope, through French and Eng- 
lish translations making them at once popular subjects, especially in 
the drama, where the characters have been somewhat divided. English 
drama almost alone has employed to any extent the rivalry between 
Hannibal and Scipio, whereas the Italian, the French drama, and after 
these, that of other countries has employed the story of Sophonisba 
almost to the exclusion of the character of Hannibal. The remainder 
of this study will attempt to treat in some detail the question of the 
original sources of Nabbes' Hannibal and Scipio, as found in the classics 
and as repeated in mediaeval and modern versions of the classic story. 

Of classic historians, Polybius and especially Livy were the chief 
sources for succeeding historians and poets. In the fourteenth century. 
Appian found a place among poets and novelists for his version of the 
story of Sophonisba; but with the rise of the romantic drama, such 
fourteenth century versions as those of Petrarch, Boccacio and Bandello, 
which empk^ed Livy's History of Rome as the general basis, were also 
used as sources for plays whether of classical or romantic character. 
Though Livy has retained precedence by virtue of his richly descriptive 
detail, vivid character coloring, epic quality, and vivacious narrative 
movement easily reconstructed into drama, Appian's relation of Sophonis- 
ba's betrothal to Massanissa prior to her patriotic marriage to Syphax, 

103 Prologue, Q. 1. 10. 



THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 41 

has taken precedence in a number of the plays, over Livy's version 
which omits this incident so replete with pathos and dramatic interest. 

Earlier comment upon Nabbes' tragedy, Hannibal and Scipio, re- 
ferred in very general terms to its classic sources. Langbaine's list is 
probably the most complete, mentioning besides Livy, Cornelius Nepos, 
Plutarch, Florus, Justinus, Orosius, Diodorus, Polybius, Appian, 
Eutropius, and adding a Renaissance source in Petrarch's II Trionfo 
d'Amore, for the Sophonisba story. Langebaine apparently refers in 
large to the whole material rather than to Nabbes' specific selection 
from the material. 104 Bullen's edition of comparatively recent date, 
1887, refers the story generally to Livy, and traces several detached 
scenes and passages of the play to definite sections of that historian. 
He adds to these a reference to Cicero, quoted in the play itself, for the 
tradition of Scipio's admiration for Xenophon's Cyropaedia, and notes 
some minor sources of allusion, such as Lucian and Silius Italicus. 105 
Bullen's references are probably as specific and complete as necessary 
for an edition of all the available plays and poems of Nabbes. A more 
intimate study, however, of the tragedy, Hannibal and Scipio, admits 
not only of a closer scrutiny of its subject matter in relation to the 
classics and other sources available, but also of other possible influences 
upon the theme and dramatic construction of the play. 

In the discussion of the "former play" reference has been made to 
the very probable sources in Silius Italicus, Livy and Appian; with 
Lucian as a source of allusion and of form in the "addresses" with 
which the play is prefaced. 106 The author's choice of motto for his 
title page, "Anna Virumque cano, " pays a passing tribute to the master 
of Silius and to the epic of Roman foundations, which had their first rival 
in young Carthage, and which even so early had exacted self-immolation 
of "Sidonian Dido." 107 Lucian probably furnishes Hanno's allusion 
to the Salapian lady as Omphale, the Lydian Queen, who held Hercules 
in distaff service. 108 Possibly Hannibal has in mind the same allusion, 
when at Capua he rebukes his soldiers as those who "Lay by all com- 
mand, save only. / To set your distaffe servants tasks, and study. / 
Lascivious dressings, not warres discipline." 109 

104 Langbaine's Eng. Dramat. Poets, p. 326. 

106 Bullen V. II. p. M. 

loe Q. 11. 1-4. 

""Aeneid, 1:1, 348. IV:629, 692. 

108 Lucian, Dial. Deorum, XIII :2, cf. Ovid, Fasti, 2:305. 

109 Q. 1. 1433, A. IV :2. A. 1:3, Q. 1. 174. 



42 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 

To gather more specific data from the great body of material which 
was available for Nabbes, some not indefinite parallel can be drawn 
between his play and Plutarch's Lives of Hannibal and Scipio, where 
legendary detail is sometimes fuller than in Livy's history. For example, 
Hannibal on seeing the effects of Capuan luxury upon his soldiers, sug- 
gests leading them again to Rome to stimulate their war-energy. Plu- 
tarch alone notes specifically the incident of the Salapian gentlewoman, 
and he comments that writers are divided upon the question of Hannibal's 
yielding himself to the pleasures that captivated his soldiers: "Some," 
writes Plutarch, "greatly commending the continencie of this Cap- 
tain." 110 Plutarch's doubt is used in the play to Hannibal's advantage, 
though the dramatic appeal of the Salapian lady to his valor as a com- 
mander, and immediately afterward, through the yet more dramatic 
announcement of Scipio 's victory in Spain, an incident calling Hannibal 
at once to renewed action. 111 The kindred episode of Scipio's self- 
command in restoring the Spanish captive to her friends, is used in the 
resolution of Massanissa's temporary alienation from Scipio on account 
of Sophonisba's death. 112 The portrayal of this in the play is similar 
to Plutarch's representation of Scipio as a "Myrour and example of all 
virtue"; but in dramatic detail the play resembles Livy, and especially 
Polybius from whom both Plutarch and Livy probably drew the inci- 
dent, though Plutarch drew also from writers no longer extant. The 
traits portrayed in the Scipio of Nabbes, are in general, those of Livy. 
For both Hannibal and Scipio, the play represses for the greater part, 
the religious formalities with which, according to Plutarch, Scipio awed 
the public, and in the play there is apparently no special connection 
between Hannibal's sacrificial oath at nine years old and the religious 
elements in his personality which according to Polybius and Plutarch, 
fused as fire, the heterogeneous army into soldiers of Hannibal. For the 
greater part, Hannibal of the play is portrayed in much the same spirit 
in which Livy describes his single, warlike and revengeful personality 
in contrast with that of the Roman chief whose martial genius was sub- 
ordinated to the greater wisdom of the Roman citizen and philosopher. 
To Hannibal of the play probably Livy gave such concrete features as 
the swarthy face wrinkled by age and care, the eye that had lost its 
light in the fens of Arnus, the cruelty and craft of his expression, and 

110 Plutarch's Life of Hannibal, North's transl. Temple Ed. V. X, p. 178-181. 
Cf. Polybius III, 11,48, 82. 

111 Q. 1:2, 11. 60-410. 
» J Q. IV: 5 11. 1570-1644. 



THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 43 

possibly his untiring physical and intellectual energy; in short, the 
soldier virtues accorded to Hannibal for Scipio's greater glory in the 
victory. 113 Hannibal's more subtle qualities of character, however, in 
his refusal to despair, his almost superhuman power to achieve his 
purpose, his intuitive insight into character and his knowledge of men, 
which in the play, seemed marvellous to Scipio in a barbarian, are 
qualities similar to the estimate of Polybius. 114 There is possibly some 
repetition of the attitude of Polybius in Plutarch, though the latter 
largely accepts the Roman attitude toward Hannibal, according him 
martial virtues, solely in exaltation of Scipio's character. It would 
seem that the play, though drawing from Cicero the allusion to the 
Cyropaedia of Xenophon for the prototype of Scipio's stoic virtues, 
nevertheless, follows Appian for the legendary detail of the meeting 
between the two heroes. 115 The change of the event from Ephesus to 
the Court of Prusias in Bythinia, is made to bring the debate between 
the two heroes for precedence in war, directly before the climax of interest 
in the ethical rivalry which closes with Hannibal's death. Appian 
abridges the meeting at Ephesus and the treachery by which Flaminius 
caused Hannibal's death at the court of Prusias, bringing the two inci- 
dents together in the same paragraph in order to contrast the magnanimity 
of Hannibal and Scipio with the perfidy of Flaminius. Livy could have 
furnished Nabbes with only the basis here, as the points which Livy 
enlarged upon are not followed by the play. It is possible, as explained 
above, that this is one of the instances in which Nabbes made radical 
changes from the "former play" which as already shown, possibly 
followed Silius Italicus in his paraphrase of Livy. However, Silius and 
Nabbes employ the fame of each hero to enhance that of the other in the 
same spirit which constitutes the chief resemblance between the two 
writers throughout. 11 ' 

The legend used by the play that Hannibal took poison from a ring 
is traceable to Juvenal's tenth satire; but there seems to be no clue so 

118 Livy Hist. Rome, XXII:2-4; XXI:4; XVVI:49-50, XXVI:19. 
ni Polybius 111:11, 48-82, pp. 208-335. Vol. I Schuckburgh's Translation. 
Polybius X, 18-19. 

115 Appian, V, 11, Bk. XI, 11, p. 120, White's Ed. 

116 Punka XVII:403-406,— 

Scipio si Libycis esset generatus in oris, 
Sceptra ad Agenoreos credunt ventura nepotes : 
Hannibal Ausonia genitus si sede fuisset 
Haud dubitant terras Italia in ditione futuras. 



44 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 

far to Juvenal's source. Many modern writers repeat the legend, but 
none name the source. 

The substitution in the play, of Hannibal for Hasdrubal, and its 
representation of Scipio as discourteous to Hannibal, instead of Livy's 
representation of his gracious bearing toward Hannibal, belongs to the 
motive of the play itself, treating as it does the intense rivalry between 
the two captains for the alliance of Syphax in the tragic crisis of Zama. 117 
It also serves dramatic economy in giving to Hannibal the patriotic 
disposal of Sophonisba, and in uniting the two heroic representatives 
of Carthage more closely to the destiny of that city, as well as in reducing 
the number of characters to the proportions of a heroic action. Another 
instance of omission on the part of the play, in the interest of abridge- 
ment, is that of Livy's dramatic scene between Massanissa and Sophonis- 
ba, at the door of her palace in Cirta, after the defeat of Syphax. 118 The 
meeting between Hannibal and Scipio before the battle of Zama, as 
described by the messenger, is similar to that of Livy, even to the inclu- 
sion of the fact that the horse of Syphax was killed under him. 119 So 
for Hannibal's behaviour in the senate house, after his defeat at Zama, 
the play seems to follow Livy's account in its detail; but the irony of 
Hannibal and his contempt for Hanno's graft, has possibly its origin 
in Polybius. 120 

The central motive of the play, Sophonisba's sacrifice for Carthage 
and her self-imposed death, undoubtedly has Appian as its original 
source. Appian is followed in this incident by Plutarch as well as by 
Sir Walter Raleigh in his History of the World, published in 1614, the 
fifth and sixth books of which treat the Second Punic War. Raleigh's 
History followed no one writer, but aimed to give an account of the 
events and chief characters concerned. In the story of Sophonisba, 
Raleigh gives Appian preference over Livy whom otherwise he deems 
more trustworthy; but according to Raleigh, certain considerations 
prove Appian's version the more reasonable. 121 Appian's chief variation 
from Livy consists in his account of Sophonisba's betrothal to Massanissa, 
before her marriage to Syphax, the latter contract having been urged 
upon her by the Carthaginia senate as patriotic policy. 122 

117 Livy XXVIII :18. 

118 Livy XXX:12, 1, Cf. Polybius, 111:2. 

119 Livy XXX:30-31, Cf. Play III; 1, Q. 11, 880-83, Bullen quotes Livy. 

120 Polybius, XX; 19, p. 152, Schuckburgh, V. II. 

121 Raleigh's History of World, V, p. 509. 

m Appian's Hist. Rome, V. I, p. 417, ed. White. 



THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 45 

It would be unreasonable to expect a very definite conclusion for 
individual writers as the immediate sources of the play, Hannibal and 
Scipio. To dramatists who read both ancient and modern literatures 
in their originals as easily as Nabbes apparently read them, all sources 
were open, and it is probable that many and varied sources were read 
in the dramatist's effort "to write the story new" and to express his 
heroes as they were when they " breath 'd ayre and had their beings 
here." 123 If his tasked "borrowing from a former play" is correctly 
understood as an admission of such indebtedness, some evidence in 
connection with that admission, has been furnished by the fragment 
as well as by the play itself, that the dramatist reconstructed what he 
borrowed, and that he enlarged upon the ethical import of the parallel 
between Hannibal and Scipio. 124 From certain changes and combina- 
tions acknowledged by the dramatist as his own, it may be inferred that 
Nabbes gave to the play the dramatic perspective which constitutes 
Hannibal and Sophonisba the two halves of the last power and glory 
of Carthage, and together the noblest because the most patriotic sacri- 
fice upon her altar. 

VII 

Nabbes' "Hannibal and Scipio" Compared with Other English 
and Foreign Plays on the Subject of the Second Punic War 

If in Nabbes' tragedy the characters of Hannibal and Scipio attain 
a scarcely higher degree of sublimity than that of Sophonisba, in the 
foreign plays, which depend chiefly upon the Sophonisba motive, Hanni- 
bal has either been discarded, or else is included incidentally, and Scipio 
is retained chiefly as a factor in Sophonisba's tragedy. The artistic 
range of Sophonisba's story is significant, having been a common theme 
for the stage since its first dramatisation in Italy by Carretto, in 1502, 
and by Trissino in 1514. Through the three centuries following, it 
appeared in more than forty plays by as many different playwrights, and 
in all the civilized countries of Europe, except Portugal whose dramatists 
were content with three different translations of Voltaire's version. The 
universal cult of the story in the different realms of art, assumed large 
proportions, amounting in the instance of the drama, almost to a cycle 
in the varied adaptations. It has been particularly the subject of first 
tragedies, and has been closely associated with innovations in the drama. 

123 To the Ghosts of Hannibal and Scipio Q. 11. 3-6. 
1M Prologue, Q. 11. 15-22. Also 1. 29. 



46 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 

As the first tragedies of Carretto and of Trissino, the story began the 
romantic drama in Italy. As its heroic vicissitudes had lent themselves 
to romanticism, its simplicity of plot and sublimity of characterisation 
lent themselves as readily to classicism in Mairet's Sophonisba, which 
in 1596, inaugurated the unities as the sine qua non of French tragedy. 
Its heroic qualities were exhibited in English Drama through Marston's 
Sophonisba, The Wonder of Women, which appeared in 1603, the year 
of the accession of King James. In the last decade of the Stuart reign, 
it was again revived in Nabbes' Hannibal and Scipio, thus closing the 
Elizabethan Drama with the theme of patriotic self-sacrifice. In 1676, 
Sophonisba or Hannibal's Overthrow, a tragedy by James Lee, completed 
the adaptation of the story to the conventional heroic type of Restora- 
tion drama. 

That Sophonisba's story is a universal art theme is shown in the ease 
with which it was adapted to music. Germany, which of all countries 
produced the greatest number of tragedies on the subject, thirteen in all, 
the theme having been introduced there as late as 1680 with Lohenstein's 
tragedy, also gave Sophonisba her musical apotheosis, in 1785, when it 
was arranged as monodrama and set to music by Meissner. In every 
leading country of Europe, the story has been used either as a musical 
theme or as a subject by painters, except in England, where first the 
courtly play and later the heroic drama gave the theme an embodiment 
allied to both opera and painting. Marston, Nabbes, and James Lee 
exhibit traces of the musical potentialities of the Sophonisba story. 

As mentioned in the preceding section, the variation from Livy's to 
Appian's version of the Sophonisba story, is the most definite point 
found in the examination of the ancient sources for the tragedy of Hanni- 
bal and Scipio, giving as it does, a broad but fundamental clue to the 
sources of all the plays, both English and foreign, which are connected 
with this story of the Second Punic War. The plays which take Livy's 
version of the story of Sophonisba, keep close to this historian throughout 
the dramatic action; those which follow Appian in the Sophonisba story, 
elect more freely from the other sources as well. 

It is impossible even with a thorough comparison of the plays which 
are accessible, all deriving, as they more or less do, from the same Latin 
originals or else from Renaissance sources as well, to say whether the 
English plays derived substantially from the foreign plays. The subject, 
however may admit of some discussion. As a basis for an investigation 
of foreign plays upon the subject, the present study is indebted to the 



THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 47 

thoroughgoing monograph of Dr. A. Andrae's Sophonisba in der fran- 
zosichen Tragodie. 125 

In Dr. Andrae's study a relation is suggested between Marston's 
Sophonisba and Montchretien's tragedy on the same theme. "It is 
possible that the Sophonisba material was established in England through 
Montchretien's who took refuge there after a duel, and at all events after 
he had written his Sophonisba. It is possible that Marston knew the 
work and was thus induced to fashion his own play, though the two 
depend upon each other, only in their use of mythical figures, Erictho 
in the English play and the furies in the French play." 126 At the time, 
1871, of writing the monograph quoted, Dr. Andrae was not aware of 
the English plays, traditionally no longer extant, which preceded Mar- 
ston's Sophonisba. In a later note, 1894, on his study published in 1891, 
Andrae mentions Ward's record of a Cipio Africanus, and especially 
Ward's inference that this play contained the Sophonisba story. 127 
Andrae's interest in making this note, apparently is in establishing the 
idea that the story of Sophonisba is inseparable from the subject what- 
ever phase of it may have been treated. Andrae however fails to note 
the bearing that the theme was established in England through Mon- 
tchretien, and he consequently fails to modify his former statement 
with another to the effect that Montchretien's visit, early in the reign 
of James, to the English court, as an author of a tragedy Sophonisba, 
possibly caused a revival in England of the motive already naturalized 
in English drama, in the Cipio Africanus of 1579-80, and repeated in 
Hannibal and Hermes, 1598, in Hannibal and Scipio of the Fortune, 1601, 
not to mention other plays drawn from the subject of the Second Punic 
War, and contemporary with the Cipio Africanus such as the Four Sons 
of Fabyous, and Quintus Fabius. 128 

Andrae favors the possibility of a relationship among plays in which 
Massanissa himself hands the poison-cup to Sophonisba, instead of merely 
employing a messenger for this errand. In support of this view Andrae 
quotes Schack whose analysis of the Spanish Los Amantos de Carta go 
he follows, as the original was inaccessible to himself. Schack believes 

126 Mit Berticksichtigung der Sophonisbe bearbeitungen in Anderen Litteraturen, 
von Dr. A. Andrae, Oppeln und Leipzig, 1891. 

126 Andrae, p. 87 refers to Schaeck II, p. 33 in support of the view that Mont- 
chretien's play was known in England. 

127 Zeitschrift fur Neu franzosichen Sprach und Literatur, 1894, p. 155. 

128 Four Sons of Fabyous acted 1580; Quintus Fabius acted 1574. See Revels, 
pp. 154, 51. 



48 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 

that the Spanish play was possibly known to the English dramatists, 
as Spanish literature was generally known in England. Andrae notes a 
marked resemblance between this Spanish play and Marston's Sophon- 
isba. Though he finds the date of the Spanish Los Amantos de Cartago 
uncertain, he concludes from the circumstance of its having been bound 
with others bearing the date 1608, that it had appeared much earlier 
and had probably preceded Marston's which was acted in 1603. Andrae 
notes resemblance between Marston's Sophonisba and Los Amantso 
not only in Massanissa's method of conveying the portion to Sophonisba 
but also in the incidents which open the two plays, especially the mar- 
riage scene of Sophonisba to Massanissa and in the interruption of the 
ceremonies by the call of Massanissa to battle against Syphax. In both 
plays there is a compact between Scipio and Syphax against Massanissa 
and Carthage. Again the arrival of Massanissa before the city gates, 
the confusion of battle, and the duel in which Syphax falls, have notable 
resemblances in spite of differences such as when in Marston's plan 
Sophonisba evades the decree of the Carthagenian senate to unite her 
in marriage to Syphax, and so remains constant to Massanissa through- 
out. Andrae notes also the same chronological sequence of events in 
the two plays, and concludes a possible borrowing from one or the other 
with the probability of Marston's indebtedness to the Spanish play. 129 
The fact that Los Amantos is the only certified tragi-comedy on the 
subject, the draught given to Sophonisba being in this play the conven- 
tional Spanish sleeping potion which does not cause death, admits of 
certain reflection upon the English plays. Halliweil quotes Gifford's 
stricture and Langbaine's interpretation of Marston's Sophonisba as 
a satire on Jonson's historical method, to the effect that Marston's play 
is no more than "an honest general satire." 130 Gifford's explanation 
places the play logically on the basis of an object lesson in the use of 
historical legend in romantic tragedy, but there is indeed pathos and 
patriotic sublimity in the death scene of Marston's Sophonisba that is 
scarcely equalled in any other play on the subject. Marston's Sophonis- 
ba is a true tragedy and in this respect differs vitally from the Spanish 
play. 

The points of sublimity noted above in the plays in which Massanissa 
himself hands the potion to Sophonisba, may be extended to the cor- 
responding scene in the Hannibal and Scipio of Nabbes. It is significant 

129 Zeitschrift, p. 69. 

130 See Langbaine, p. 350. Cf. Holliwell's Introd. to Plays of John Marston. See 
Gifford's Ben Jonson, Introd. 

\ 



THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 49 

also that Nabbes negates the effect of a sleeping potion in Massanissa's 
speech as he hands the cup fo Sophonisba, 

"This is no potion to preserve a beauty 

In its first greene; or ripe it to a Summer; 

Or prevent th' Autumme; or returne the Winter 

Into a new Spring. This will pale the dye 

Which thy cheek blushed when it would cloth modesty 

In a rich scarlet;" 131 

Again the situation in which Massanissa wishes to end his own life 
at Sophonisba's death, as described in Los Amantos, is also varied with 
fine effect by Nabbes when the cup is conveyed to Sophonisba, 

'Give me some wine: 
Fie drink a bridall health to Sophonisba, 
And mixe it with Nepenthe, Here's the juice 
Will cause forgetfulnesse, and mask th' extremity 
Of my adverse fortune. 132 (Messenger enters with wine) 

Interpreting Massanissa's words to refer to his own death by drinking 
of the cup, Sophonisba begs, 

Leave to breath 
An errant o're it; that when he is entred 
Elysium, throngs of Carthagenian Heroes 
May bid him welcome, and informe themselves 
From him of Sophonisba." 133 

By this artful movement Sophonisba secures the cup for herself. The 
entire scene is artistically contrived for Massanissa and Sophonisba 
each to share the inevitable outcome and with each to make it fall as 
lightly as possible on the other. 

Scipio's offer of a Roman lady in marriage to Massanissa, is similar 
to the attempt in the Spanish play to marry Massanissa to Amatilda 
after the supposed death of Sophonisba. 134 Most plays follow the story 
of Sophonisba's marriage to Syphax, for patriotic reasons, and her sub- 
sequent return to Massanissa. The Spanish play is not taken from Livy, 
nor from any one source in particular, though Applian's version of 
Sophonisba is the leading motive. This electicism agrees with Nabbes' 
method of using his sources. In respect of Los Amantos, Andrae finds 

131 Q. 1116-1126. 

132 Q. 1091-1095. 

133 Q. 1149-1153. 

134 Q. 1560-1563. 



50 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS N ABBES 

a certain indebtedness to Petrarch's Africa in Massanissa, dating his 
fortunes from the time of Scipio's arrival in Africa; but there is seemingly 
no necessity for tracing any such indebtedness of Nabbes to Petrarch's 
Africa. The indications are that the resemblances noted above have 
arisen from the same or else similar sources used by the two English 
dramatists and by the author of the Spanish play. As for Marston and 
Nabbes, the interpretation in both, of Sophonisba's patriotism is suf- 
ficiently similar to satisfy the supposed indebtedness of Nabbes to a 
"former play" if Appian were not as apparently the source of the story 
in both plays. Aside from the Sophonisba story the sources are ap- 
parently different even for somewhat similar features: Nabbes drawing 
from Lucian's Dialogues for the address to the Ghosts of Hannibal and 
Scipio; Marston drawing from Lucian's Pharsalia for his episode of the 
witch Erictho as well as for the subterranean passage through which 
Sophonisba escapes Syphax. 135 Another less easily explicable coincidence 
between Marston and Nabbes may be noted in the epilogue spoken 
by Scipio at the close of the play of Hannibal and Scipio and in the 
highly dramatic touch in the death scene of Marston's Sophonisba, where 
Massanissa takes the laurel wreath from his own brow, and crowns 
Sophonisba on her bier. Similarly in Nabbes' Epilogue, Scipio says, 
. . . . "To him that writ 

Our story, gratefully I would allow 

One leave of Lawrell torne from mine own brow. 

Another author of a Sophonisba, Nicolas de Montreux, has in this 
tragedy, and in the titles, at least, of his other plays, a significant as- 
sembly. The list of his plays includes besides a Sophonisba, a Diana, 
a Cleopatra, a Cyrus, a Hannibal and a Chaste Joseph. The edition of 
his Sophonisba which Andrae found in a volume of tragedies by various 
authors, bears the date 1599. 136 The other plays of Montreux, the men- 
tion of which precedes that of his Sophonisba, and which for this reason 
were supposedly prior in composition, have not been located, though his 
Hannibal is believed to be still in manuscript. 137 The only reason for 
dwelling upon Montreux is that, as far as known, he is the only foreign 
dramatist who wrote a play on Hannibal, or who has given Hannibal 

I35 Lucian Dial. XII; Pharsalia, Bk. VI. 

136 Diverses tragedies de plensiers Anthems de ce temps, Recueillies par Raphael 
du Petit vol. A. Rouen, 1599. 

137 Vol. 39 of Nicerone (Jean P.) Memorial Hist, of illustrious men of the republic 
of letters, pp. 196-205, Paris 1727-1745. 



THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 51 

more than passing notice in a play on Sophonisba. In his Sophonisba, 
Montreux has given a brief scene also to Hannibal. 

Andrae regards the Sophonisba of Montreux as the first French play 
on the theme to be treated in any very independent manner as contrasted 
with the general tendency to follow Trissino. Though in the general 
comment of his critics, Montreux is a poor playwright, Andrae credits 
him as far as Sophonisba is concerned, with creating a new role for this 
play. It is possible that the individuality of Montreux as regards 
Sophonisba is explicable by the difference between his sources and those 
of Trissino who follows Livy closely. Montreux names his sources, 
Appian, and Plutarch's life of Scipio Africanus, the same writers who 
are evidently among the original sources for the Hannibal and Scipio 
of Nabbes. It is possibly for this reason that the same conflict between 
love and duty, appears in the debate which Montreux has Scipio hold 
with Laelius and Syphax, as in that Nabbes has Scipio hold with Mass- 
anissa. 138 It is possibly also the reason that both dramatists represent 
Scipio as, the servant of the gods, sacred and holy whom none dare injure 
without exciting divine vengeance. Both Montreux and Nabbes are 
indebted to Appian for Sophonisba's betrothal to Massanissa before her 
marriage to Syphax, and both give to her a highly patriotic purpose. In 
Montreux, however, Syphax praises Sophonisba even in his defeat, 
whereas Nabbes follows the Roman attitude of Livy's version in which 
Syhpax declares himself deluded by her beauty, to break his faith with 
Rome. This is possibly also an idea accepted by Nabbes from the 
"fragment play." With both Nabbes and Montreux, Massanissa feels 
defiant toward Rome when he fails to rescue Sophonisba. This defiance 
is strongly marked in Montreux' Massanissa who is a sort of injured 
Achilles and must be coaxed to fight against Carthage. In the tragedy 
of Hannibal and Scipio, Massanissa's defiance is marked by sustained 
sadness and distrust of Scipio's boasted self-command. 

Nabbes has avoided everywhere what Andrae points out as the 
chief defects of Montreux, who has Massanissa send the cup to Sophon- 
isba, and who in every great crisis of the play fails to bring these two 
characters together on the stage. Instead of Massanissa's wish for a 
noble death for Sophonisba, accompanied by a prayer to the gods for 
her rest, as in Montreux, Nabbes is more truly dramatic in Sophonisba's 
refusal of Massanissa's prayer that Aesculapins might avert the will of 
the gods. As in the instance of certain similarities between the Sophon- 
isba of the tragedy of Hannibal and Scipio and Los Amantos de Carthage, 

138 Q. 950-1035. 



52 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS N ABBES 

so its resemblances with the Sophonisba of Montreux, are such as should 
be expected of dramatists who have used the same source for their plays, 
just as the differences are those expected of individual writers who add 
original features for particular scenes. 

With the Hannibal of Montreux written before 1601, not available, 
with the English Hannibal and Scipio of 1598 and the Cipio Africanus 
of the revels, 1579-80, traditionally nonextant, the tragedy of Nabbes 
and the Latin fragment of the Bodleian, are the only available extant 
works remaining of those which up to Nabbes' own time, give Hannibal, 
from the beginning of the play, his proper place in the drama connected 
with the subject of the Second Punic War. In later plays, such as 
Nathaniel Lee's Hannibal's Overthrow which was acted in 1703, the 
character of Hannibal is far below the heroic figure of history and classical 
legend. In James Thomson's Sophonisba, acted in 1730, Hannibal is 
once more an accident of the Sophonisba story such as had already been 
portrayed in the Italian and the French plays. Whether or not the 
Bodleian fragment is the "former play" mentioned by Nabbes in his 
Prologue, and whatever may have been its relation to the still earlier 
English plays on the same subject, Nabbes' Hannibal and Scipio, up to 
his time and for more than a century thereafter, remained the only com- 
plete play extant, which is known to preserve the Roman historical 
perspective of the conflict between the old and decadant civilization of 
Carthage, and the young and progressive civilization of Rome, exhibiting 
each as represented in great genius. Nabbes adopted the traditional 
Roman point of view, in dividing the strength of Carthage between 
Hannibal and Sophonisba: Hannibal embodying her martial force and 
strategy; Sophonisba embodying her ancient seductive charm; Scipio 
summing up the source of Rome's early prowess as consisting in tem- 
perance, fortitude, wisdom and justice, the stoic virtues of magnanimous 
patriotism. The dramatic purpose of Nabbes in his Hannibal and Scipio, 
as in all his plays, was to realize character, and to that end to realize 
Hannibal and Scipio as they lived in the minds of those they impressed. 
The hero among men is always invested with legend; so Nabbes reinvested 
Hannibal and Scipio with the legend their action inspired. The drama- 
tist's purpose was not historical accuracy, but the accuracy of a known 
perspective as these men appeared to act upon their environment and 
to be reacted upon by it, in fine, that which after all, constitutes the 
heroic personality. 



THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 



53 



531. Written by 
16 Cent, hand) 



TRANSCRIPT OF A FRAGMENT OF A PLAY IN LATIN VERSE IN 
WHICH HANNIBAL IS THE PRINCIPAL CHARACTER. 
Bodleian MS. 20577 (Malone 531). 

ACTUS I us Scena l a 

Juno 
(f IV of the 2nd Horebit ergo? turgidum attollet caput 
item in Malone Invisa nobis tenera gens? profugus, iners, 

Perfidus inermis, prodita patriae, enget 
Romana jura? penitus an summae irrita 
Junonis odia? Minint — iras dies? 
Pacemne dedimus, Romana qua fruitur, datur 
Quod nullus hostis? cuijus insana et ferox 
Mens turbo sicut rapidus ex imo eruat 
Romana sceptra, cujus armatus furor 
Latium ruina vertat, evertat statim. 
Hostem deesse quaerimus? ast hostis datur 
Magnamine Rutile? siste violentum impetum 
Praelatus hospes debitas poenas luet. 
Tyrias per undas victor Europae venit 
Carthago peperit bellicum, impavidum virum; 
Emersit Hannibal, maria, terrain, omnia 
Miscebit atrox, machinam mundi potens 
Dissolvet, altus timeat, et caveat sibi 
Junonis ille frater. Enceladi patrem 
Carthago enixa est; jura violata improbe, 
Disrupta foedera, et fidem ferro manu, 
Discussam, ut ipsa sacra divorum colit. 
Hie miles animo regias toilet minas 
Se vix inermis continet strictus furor 
Armata. dextra quid velet? quid non vepe* 
Caput illud alto vertice elatum 
Expectat Helleborum cruentem ensem 
I perge miles noster Hannibal, pede 
Fausto, fluente sanguine ardentem sitim 
Sedato, Latij regna jam tota excidant 
Iter ruina serve, sit vilis pudor 
Superbe, cresce, maximum Hannibilis de . . . 
Sit Roma victa, sed, velim tandem mat 
Herculea quondam injusta quod fecit m . . . 
Opus Segunthum, parta, sic parta ultis 



(f. 2) [written in 
MS. ve (pe). 
There may be a 
letter cut off af- 
ter ve] 



[51 



[10] 



[151 



[201 



[251 



[301 



[351 



"[The edges of the book have been trimmed by the binder, hence occasionally 
parts of a word are cut away at the end of a line.]»-Note of the copyist. 



54 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 

bcena 2 
Hannibal cum militibus et Boschus ductor 

Hannibal 
Generosa sobiles Martis, Hannibalem 
Vestrum creastis, bellicae fraenos rei 
Haec nostra retinet, nostra moderatur 
Lnbens amorem amplector hunc, pariter 

Fidem pudoris nesciam, summe inc . . . [40] 

Amplector, ilia est militum egregium, de . . . 
Sed quern velitis (milites) placidum d . . . 
Castris latentem? lanquidum otio pla . . . 
Ducis sequester, dura qui nulla imper . . . 
(f. 2y) Talem velitis? eligite truncum ducem, [45] 

Statuam create nulla quae bella exitet, 
Discedat Hannibal, aliter hie Martem induit 
Tristes labores sitis, toleranda famem, 
Caedes, rapinas, funera melius color 

Intus reversus mente secreta ex quo qiut [50] 

Oculis soporem denego, frustra mihi 
Natura noctem fecit, et frustra otium. 
Insanit Imber? Vertice occuram imbribus 
Nee fulminantis dextram timeo Iovis. 

Si me velitis regere, vos similes mej, [55] 

Faciam necesse est; plura peragenda impiger 
Vix cessat animus voce dum prodam meas 
Quis fuerit intus impetus, quantus furor. 

Boschus 
Magnanime ductor, dulce Poenorum decus 

Solus calescis frigidum numquid putas [60] 

Hoc pectus? ignis sicut ^Etnaeus furit 
Te quaerimur ipsi languidum, tardum nimis 
Videtur Hannibali dubia nostra fides? 
Intus tumescit animus, accensus furor 

Imas medullas vrit impatiens morae [65] 

Quid dura nerras? dura dediscimus pati 
Dudum, recentes non sumus vitam hactenus 
Mollem, sub umbra neutriquam dux ut manus 
haec tua, Inbeto tristia, horrenda, impia 

Natura quicquid timeat, aut horret nimis [70] 

Dux si inbebit, fiet, haud dubita, licet 
Fortuna frendat, dira si Mars intonat 
Nihil est, senectus languida, imbellis, deos 
Curet: lacertos numquid hos decent preces? 
Per fas nefas ve quod libet faciam, viam [75] 

Si quid negabit, hoc dabit ferrum viam 
Discendit istud semitam, atque aditum dabit. 
(f. 3) Ducas remota ad litora ignota hactenu[s] 



THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 



55 



[line cut away, 
only the tops of 
letters visible] 



Pino timenda navitis, ducas velim 

Vrbem ad sacertam, maximam, armatam, ire 

/Equanda terris menia, aequabo solo 

Sit ilia forsan, Roma, quis Romam tim . . . 

Non plura dicam, militis certe probrum es[t] 

Esse eloquentem; Due, iube, presto est manu 

Ad exequenda plura, quam Hannibal imb . . 

Parata ad arma milites bella exigunt. 

Omnes ad arma. 
Hannibal 
Vos laudo, pronum militem unanimem manu 
Accipio, virtus iuncta consilio magis 
Magisque nostras spes victrix ratas 
Hannibalis animus grande presentit bonu . . 
Sed petite castra milites. Boschus par . . . 
Maneat, Quid intus animus evolbit sci . . . 
Cum prima voces lingua distinxit meas 
Sonore bellum lingua Romanum mea 
Didicit, et ipse primus hie sonus manet 
Ad usque temp us istud; et primus furor 
Mecum senescit, dirus et gratus comes 
His adde invenis, vel puer, vix tunc sciens 
Quid esset hasta, bella quid, patri pie 
Testatus ipsa numina dedimus fidem 
Hostem latius memet infestum fore 
Iurata res est, debitum solvam lubens 
Patri sepulto, bella sic pietas velit 
Deesse patri nolo, non fallam fidem 
Et quid moramur, ista si here placent. 



Boschus 
Honesta causa, pulchra res, promptae satis 
Validae cohortes, arma sumenda ocyus 
Parens Amilcar iussit; et dormis tamen? 
Quid vetera narras odia, iam sonitu tuba 
Clauxisse dudem oportuit, tacitus furor 
Vt fulmen aera dividens rumpat foras. 

Hannibal 
Erumpat ergo; sentiet primum hoc malum 
Nimium Sagunthos libera accipiat nisi, 
Animo lubenti nostra quae dabimus inga 
Celeres vocatur nuncij ; hoc pie satis [Intrant] 
Dicite Saguntho pareat, quod si neget 
Stringantur ensis; bella et hostiles manus 
Instare videat tuta pax frigit procul 
Micante fero et igne fugientem sequar. 

Exeunt Hannibal et Boschus. 



[80] 



[85] 



[90] 



[95] 



[100] 



[105] 



[110] 



[115] 



56 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 

Scena 3 ia 
Ntjncij: Saguntini 

Nuncius i us 
Vrbes velimus presides Dominos : Sagunt: sumus [120] 

Illi ipsi: at unde sonitus, et quid vult tuba? 

Nuncius 
lam statuit ille magnus atque ingens virum 
[Duc]tor superbus Hannibal, bella acriter 
Sumenda in hostes quoslibet, terram da . . . 
Aquamque nisi patienter, atque eius ferent [125] 

Imperia iusta dicite hactenus licet 
Obsequia minuent odia, cedando duce . . . 
Vobis pericla fugere, quae capiti immin . . . 
Nostro salutem, tuta presidia et decus 

Paratis, ampla spolia; sin marti place [130] 

Armisque credere, bella nee dubia movent 
Bella haec cruenta pace sublata, geret 
Poenus, feroci cuncta prostermens manu 

Sagun : Sicoris 
Quid hoc? tremiscit animus, et pectus . . . 
Quid possit Hannibal, petit, rapiet, prem . . . [135] 

Aliena regna? teneat innocuus manus 
Ductore dignas inclyto fieri nocens 
Vbique potent, non potest fieri innocens 
Vbique, pareat sanguine nostro et suo. 

Vigeat Sagunthos libera, et semper dies [140] 

Vrbs grata, nescit ferre Poenorum ingun . . . 
Sed ista potius longa consilia expetunt 
Caeca est temeritas cuncta praecipitans; d . . . 
Responsa referet alius, hie nova attuli . . . 

Nuncius : 2 US 

Imo repente dicite, et palam et statim [145] 

Deliberandum pace, sed sonitus tubae 

Praesignat arma prompta, qua nequent n . . . 

Servare, dirus militem exagitat furor 

Mensura non est illius motus dies 

Nunc dicite an haec conditio placet [150] 

Non est morandum, lingua non facit mor . . . 

lam proroganda, vestra mens quae sit, cito 

Statuisse opportebit aliter dubia est salu . . . 

Quam sic velitis integram. lam, iam loq . . . 

[The rest of line lubes [155] 

cut away] *Vertatis: Ecce castra magnanimi ducis 

(i. 3 v.) Parere placeat, hoc Saguntinis dabunt. 

Stragem et supulchrum, nostra si imperia abnuunt. 



THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 



57 



Saguntinus 

Tabifica mentis vitia qua voce intonas? 

Mors tam parata est? Siste lethele impetum; [160] 

Si|sit loquendum, si labris sedeat meis 

Patriae ruina sacia vel patriae solus 

Proh misera pietas, Quicquid in nostro crepat 

Carthago renuo; Quodque in extremis solet [165] 

Metus ipse fugit, neutiquam patriae decus 

Depono sponte sancta, sed Poenos fides 

Pietas cohibet; Nuncius: Punica at fallit fides 

Corrupta sero foedera vigetis, nihill 
[teste interlined Faciunt: Sagunt: sacrata teste numine haud volent [170] 

above, haud Foedera? Movebunt sed Saguntinos fides 

struck out] Foedusque Romae prestitum sceleris reus 

Non ero nefandi: Nunci bella presignat tuba. 

Exeunt. 

Chorus: 
Amilcharis Vmbra 

Olim nomen erat fortis Amilcharis 

Sat no turn ducibus, qui faera praelia [175] 

Hoc astu Lybico digna per omnia 

Amplexi, ac eadem tendit ad inferos 

Mecum mens amimum non locus alterat 

Ulinc sollicitos nunc refero gradus 

Vt tandem videam, quid facit Hannibal [180] 

Belidae generis, summae inclytus 

[line cut away] cidus degener abditus 

(f. 4) Castris ille latet? nee gerit horrida 

Quae mundus timeat? seu referat patrem 

Audax in scelera, haec nam sobilem probant [185] 

Haec haedos similes patribus indicant 

Si vultus patrios, atque animum patris 

Gestat terrificum, concipit et novas 

Strages assidue, sanguine de meo 

Dicam progenitum, vivit Amilcharis [190] 

E casto gremio, filius Hannibal 

Virtutem aut vitium quod gentor ten . . . 

Haeres possideat; Iuo sit imaginis 

Signati speciem reddere propriam 

Numen si recolat, si fuerit pius [195] 

Quae non competerent castra sequentibus 

lam iam quo superos vel puer invocat 

In mentem subeat, rumpere foedera 

Romana, et patriae pellere dedecus. 

Infans pollicitus tanta; nee effluant [200] 

Quae mente tenerae sunt satis indita 

Excrescat magis, ast Hannibalis furor 

Et primo rapiat proxima singula 



58 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 

Ad Roman facilis sic dabitur via. 

Stabo, posteritas quae facit effera [205] 

Spectabo scelera, ac aspiciam probans. 
ACTUS 2 US Scena: T 

Boschus: CUM MITITIBUS 
Quam sunt parati milites? belli exitus 
Adstat secundus, arma cum tereat manus 
Nescia repulsae, qualis haec nostra est cohors. 

(f. 4. v.) Batista 

En hie balistam, ducta cui circum caput [210] 

Habena firma, verbere insigni iacit 
Glandes, vel ipsa tela, si noceant magis 
Torquebit ilia terminum ad caeli voltimum 
Solus capessam bello, sum potens satis. 

Proiector Saxorum 

En hie libranda saxa dum metum opprimant [215] 

Valido lacerto, brachia haec nevos probant 

His irruentis hostis obsistam impetum 
[edge of MS. Iisdemque pellem millia hostis agmina 

cut away] Solus capessam bella, sum instructus satis. 

Lancea 
Impulsa quid vult lancea haec nodo levj [220] 

Imas medullas, ossa quae exiccat calor 
Et dura liquit, fundit angustos poros 
Extendit altum cuspide explorans viam 
Solus capessam bella, sum validus satis. 

Sagittarius 
En hie sagittas toxico infestas Hidrae [225] 

Hae si remota leniter attingant, ubi 
Patrio veneno Getica quod tellus parit 
Nervas retorquens deficit, valent tamen 
Satis in ruinam, virus exitum dabit 
Solus capessam bello, sum victor dolo. [230] 

Boschus 
(f. 5) Bene est, pericla quisquis vel solus fere 

Sat bellicosa vriba, Cadmea domo 
Et gente digna, facta si verbis quod . . . 
Scena 2 a 
Intrat Hanniball 

Hanniball 
Intus phalanges se parent, dies adest 
Qua terminantur bella cum pace impro . . . 

Exeunt Boschus . . . [235] 

cum Militibus. 



THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 59 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Plays Upon Which the Study is Directly Based 
Bride (The), Thomas Nabbes, A. 1638 Pr. 1640, Bullen, Old Plays. 
Covent Garden, Thomas Nabbes, A. 1632-3, Pr. 1638, Bullen, Old Plays. 
Hannibal and Scipio, Trag. Thomas Nabbes, A. 1635, Pr. 1637, Quarto. 
Hannibal, Fragment in Latin verse, Bodleian M. S. 20577, Malone 531. 
Microcosmus, A Moral Masque, Thomas Nabbes, A. 1634, Pr. 1637. 
Presentation (A) for the Prince, Thomas Nabbes, written, 1638, Bullen, 1887. 
Spring's Glory (The) Masque, Thomas Nabbes, Written 1638, Bullen 1887. 
Unfortunate Mother (The) Trag. Thomas Nabbes, Written 1638, Pr. 1640, Bullen 
edition 1887. 

Plays Used for Direct Illustration 
Agrippina, Empress of Rome, Thomas May, Pr. 1654, Q. 
Albovine, Sir Wm. Davenant, Edinburgn, 1872. 

Antiquary (The) Shackerley Marmion, Pr. 1641, Hazlitt, Dodsley V. XIII, 1875. 
Cataline, his conspiracy, B. Jonson, (Trag) A. 1611. 
Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt (Trag) T. May, Q. Pr. London, 1854. 
Cornelii Nepotis Vitae, Excellentium Imperatorum, Lipsiae c/3/3 ccv. 
Dido, Queen of Carthage (Trag) Marlowe-Nash, 1591-94. 
Sejanus, his Fall, (Trag) B. Jonson, 1603, 1605—. 
Sophonisba, The Wonder of Women, (Trag) J. Marston, 1603-1806. 
Sophonisba, or Hannibal's Overthrow (Trag) N. Lee, London, 1722. 
Sophonisba, James Thompson, A. 1788 (Bell's Brit. Theat. V, 18.) 
Sophonisba, Calotto Caretto, Ferrara, 1546. 
Sophonisba, Antoine de Montchretien, 1596. 
Sophonisba, Giovanni Giorgio, A. 1524 (Ed. with Tasso's notes). 
Sun's Darling, (The) A Moral Masque, Dekker-Ford, 1623. 
Virgin Martyr (The) Dekker-Massinger (Trag) A. 1620. 

Plays Bearing Less Directly Upon the Study 

Covent Garden Weeded, Richard Brome, A. 1632. Dramatic Works of Brome, 3 
Vols., London, 1873. 

Love and Honour, Sir. Wm. Davenant, A. 1634, Dramatic Works of, 5 Vols., Edin- 
burgh, 1872. 

Ordinary (The), Wm. Cartwright, Pr. 1691, Dodsley-Hazlitt V, XII, 1875. 

Politician (The) James Shirley, (Trag) A. 1639, Pr. 1655, Dr. Works 6 Vols., London, 
1833. 

Temple of Love (The) Sir Wm. Davenant (Masque) A. 1634 Davanant's Dramatic 
Works, see above. 



60 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 

Works Used for Biographical Data and General Comment 
Account (An) of the English Dramatic Poets, Gerard Langbaine, London, 1691. 
Annals of the Stage etc., 3 Vols., F. P. Collier, V, 1, London, 1831. 
Biographia Litera, V, 1, fifth ed. 1838. 
Censura, Sir Samuel Brydges, 10 Vols., V, 1. 

Chronicle (A) Hist, of The London Stage, (1559-1642) F. G. Fleay, London, 1890. 
Collected Works of Thomas Nabbes (Introd.) A. H. Bullen, London, 1887. 
Companion to the Play House, 2 Vols., 1764, Baker, London. 
Dictionary (The) of National Biography, ed. Sir S. Lee, Vol., XL 
Elizabethan (The) Drama, 1558-1642, F. E. Schelling, 2 Vols., 2nd ed. 1889. 
Encyclopedia Brittanica, (The). 
Encyclopedia of English Literature (The). 
Extracts from the Account of the Revels at Court in the Reigns of Elizabeth and 

King James I, ed. by Peter Cunningham. 
Genest, V, X. p. 595. 

Henslowe's Diary, ed. W. W. Gregg, 2 Vols. 
Historia Histronica, Dodsley-Hazlitt, V, XX, Pr. 1699. 
History of English Dramatic Literature to the Death of Queene Anne, 4 Vols., Sir. 

A. Ward, London, 1879. 
History of Literature, Klein Vol., V. 
History of French Literature, Van. Laun, London, 1883. 
Italian Poets (The), Stebbing, V. II. 

Knolles' Richard, History of the Turks, Nabbes' continuation. 
Lectures on Dramatic Literature in the Age of Elizabeth, Hazlitt, London, 1821. 
Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland, Cibber, 5 Vols., London, 1783. 
Old and New London, W. Thornbury, London. Undated. . 
Specimens of the English Dramatic Poets, Charles Lamb, ed. by Israel Gollanez, 

London, 1893. 

Sources Consulted for Hannibal and Scipio and for Other Plays on the Subject 
of the Second Punic War 

A 

Primary and Approximate Sources 
Appian's Roman History, 4 Vols., (V, 1-2) edited and accompanied with translation, 

by Horace White, London, 1912. 
Cicero, M. Tullius, De Lege Agraria, 11:36. 

The Correspondence of, 4 Vols. ed. Robert Yelverton, Tyrrell, 
Dublin and London, 1885, See V. Ill, 23. 
Claudianus, Claudius, Idylleia, etc. 

Homer, The Iliad and the Odyssey, ed. William Dindorf, Lipsiae, Teubner, 1908. 
Horatii (Q) Flacci, Opera Illustr. by C. W. King, Revised by H. A. J. Munro, London, 

1869. 
Juvenal, D. Juni, Thirteen Satires, 2 Vols., (Vol. 1) John E. B. Mayor, London, 1893. 
Titi Livi, In Urbe Condita, Libri, erklert von W. Weissenborn, Berlin, 1860 B. XXX. 
Lucian of Samosata, The Works of, Trans. H. W. and F. G. Fowler, Oxford, 1905. 
Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) Fasti. 

Pliny (Plini Secundi Naturalis, Historiae, Hamburg et Gothae, 1851. 
Pliny's Natural History Trans, by Bostwick and Riley, (Bohn Lib.) London, 1845.- 



THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 61 

Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, Englished by Sir Thomas North, 
1579, Vol., VI, ed. G. Wyndham, (Annibal) (Scipio African). London, 1896. 

Polybius, General Hist, of the Wars of the Romans, Trans, from Greek by Mr. Hamp- 
ton, London, 1812. 

Strabonis Geographia, Parisiis, 1853. 

Virgil (P) Maronis Opera, ed. T. L. Papillon and A. E. Haigh, Oxford, 1892. 

Xenophon, Cyropaedia and Memorabilia, Trans. Bohn, Lib. 

Secondary Sources consulted for reference to primary sources, and for comment, textual 

notes, etc. 
Andrea's Sophonisba in der Franzosischen Tragodie, Oppeln und Leipsig, 1891. 
Arnold, Thomas, Hist, of Rome V, III, 2nd ed. London, 1845. 
Arnold Thomas, A Life of Hannibal (Famous Warrior Series) New York, no date. 
Bandello, see Painter, (below). 
Boccacio, see Painter, (below). 
Crutwell, C. T. Hist. Roman Lit. N. York, 1887. 
Dodge, T. A. Hannibal (A defense of Hannibal) New York, 1891. 
Donaldson, James, Woman, Her Position and Influence in Ancient Greece and Rome, 

New York, 1907. 
Fairbanks, Arthur, The Mythology of Greece and Rome, New York, 1907. 
Green, J. R., A Short History of the English People, New York, 1888. 
Harper's Dictionary, Classical Antiquities, New York, 1896. 
Morley Edition, Character Writings of Seventeenth Century, London, 1891. 
Mommson, Theodor, Hist, of Rome V, II, Transl. by W. P. Dickon, New York, 1900. 
Niebuhr. G. Lectures on the History of Rome 3 Vols., London, 1849. 
Painter's Palace of Pleasure, ed. J. Jacobs V, 11, London, 1890. 
Petrarch's II Trionfo d' Amore, Trans. Bohn Lib. 
Preller, L. Romische Mythologie, Berlin, 1881. 

Raleigh, Sir. W., History of the World in Six Books, Vols., V and VI, Edinburgh, 1820. 
Schelling, F. E., English Literature in the Time of Shakespeare, New York, 1910. 
Seyffert, Oscar, Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, etc. London, 1891. 
Simcox, G. A., Hist, of Latin, Literature, Ennius to Boethius, 2 Vols.,?New York, 1906. 
Smith, Wm., Dictionary Greek and Roman, Antiq. London, 1891. 
Warton, Thomas, History of English Poetry, 3 Vols., V, I, London 1840. 
Wright, Thomas, A Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial English, London, 1857. 



Part II of this Thesis consists of a transcript of the Quarto text, 
1637, of Hannibal and Sclpio, with some introductory pages remaining 
from the part here published. The text is accompanied with notes 
and a glossary. 



r 



014 066 180 6 



